John Lennon and George Harrison

Today is a bad day for Beatles fans, quite possibly the worst. As we know, John Lennon was murdered on this day in 1980 by Mark David Chapman (many Beatles fans won't mention his name, which I think is ridiculous, it's not going to change what happened and never will). This is just my thoughts about that day and also November 29, 2001, the day George Harrison died.

I wrote in one of my November blogs last year about my friend Steve coming over the morning after. We were in 5th grade at the time, and I think he knew more about them than I did, he certainly had more of their records than I. At one point during the school day we switched classrooms (there were 2 fifth grade classes, and they switched us a few times a day, to make us woefully unprepared for class switching in middle school). The other teacher (Mrs. Cooper) asked us if we knew what happened last night, and I clearly remember my shouted-out answer: "Some jerk shot John Lennon." I don't remember exactly what we talked about after that, but Mrs. Cooper seemed a little angry about it, like Steve did that morning.

The radio of course was filled with Lennon and Beatles music. I made a few tapes of some of that, I think mostly from WNEW-FM out of NYC, but they have been lost to time. I know I played them quite a bit after the murder. There were plenty of TV shows as well, and I remember taping a few of those too, but they met the same fate as the radio show.

That Sunday was the vigil in Central Park that Yoko asked for. People gathered there at 2 pm and had 10 minutes of silence. That morning I went with my dad to get wood for the stove that we had, but not because I wanted to. I brought a radio with me because the stations were still playing all Beatles and Lennon solo stuff. We went back to my dad's friend's house before 2, and my dad's friend put on his stereo so I could listen to WNEW. I sat alone in that room while everyone else was in the kitchen getting ready for lunch. The vigil started and WNEW was silent, but I didn't realize that the rest of the house was also silent. A few minutes later my dad came in and tapped me on the shoulder and gestured for me to come with him. There was a room in front of the house where they had a TV, and everyone was gathered around it, watching live coverage of the vigil. No one said a word until it was over.

I was sad about the murder, but I didn't cry, because I didn't really know what I had lost. After that, I jumped into the Paul sucks because he's still alive camp (which a LOT of people are still in, sadly) and read as much about the Beatles and John Lennon that I could, and I became more aware of the loss over time. A few years ago I was watching the Lennon Legend DVD (a collection of videos for his songs), and after a few songs I found tears streaming down my face. I think it was more for what could have been, which is a bit selfish.

George Harrison's death was a different story, although it was as much a surprise to me as John's death was. Despite my internet obsession in 2001, I really didn't know he was that sick, and when I saw his death mentioned on a news site, it was a shock. What was also a shock was the amount of coverage that his death received. It wasn't nearly as much as John had, even in the pre-internet days, but it was more than I expected. I remember watching various news channels on Saturday night (he passed away on Thursday) well into the night, and they all had extended coverage about George and broke away occasionally for other news. I also watched A Hard Day's Night and Help! that night too, I was home by myself and I was doing a cross-stitch project that I had to finish by the next day, so I was up very late.

I did cry a little that night for George. I was into the Beatles more than ever at that time, the mp3 was fairly new and I was finding a lot of Beatles bootlegs online that I had never heard before. George is definitely the unsung hero of the Beatles. I was also getting into George's solo stuff more too, my child- and early-adulthood being dominated by John and Paul, and even Ringo, since he was putting out albums where George wasn't. The year after George's death, the Concert for George happened, and that was hard to watch without crying. I still haven't watched the whole thing, despite being a celebration of his life, not a remembrance of his death.

And I guess that's the thing, we can be sad that these two men are gone, but we still have and will always have their music to listen to and enjoy, and that makes me happy.

My drunken exploits

You may surmise from my frequent writings of pouring bourbon and other liquors over things that I eat, that I like to drink a lot. That is not the case at all, I rarely drink. If I do, it is at home or at some one's house, where it is much cheaper than drinking at a restaurant or bar. I do that occasionally, however. For example, I went with my family to Trader Vic's, and I deemed it necessary to have a pina colada while I was there.

When I was in high school and drinking was prevalent amongst my friends, I didn't drink. I think the main reason was that I was afraid. Of what, I don't know, maybe getting in trouble for being underage, or perhaps getting into an accident (this was the heyday of MADD, I remember watching the TV movie made about it, I think Jamie Lee Curtis was in it). It wasn't until after high school that I began dabbling, mainly wine coolers, because I didn't like the taste of alcohol. I was introduced to the screwdriver and fuzzy navel soon enough, and I loved those. I think I had shots exactly once, I don't remember what kind of liquor it was, but I didn't like it.

My 21st birthday rolled around, and I decided (or my friends decided for me) that I would get drunk. If I remember right, I had a mudslide and a kamikaze, and maybe a screwdriver or two. But I was really sozzled, I threw up quite a few times (I had also eaten an entire pizza), and I still have a scar on my right middle finger from burning it with a cigarette I was smoking (I didn't smoke). I passed out around 3 am, and I had the worst case of cottonmouth the next morning. I felt truly awful, and I guess I got it out of my system, because I never did that again to that extent.

Because of this, I have an extremely low tolerance for alcohol. The aforementioned pina colada made me silly for the rest of the night. Sarah and I went to the LoneStar Steakhouse when we were still in NJ, and she drove so I could try the Pecos Peach, which was basically a Slurpee with alcohol in it. I liked the first one so much that I had another, and I was pretty well toasted after that. We ordered dessert, and I got a brownie a la mode, which contained the worst brownie I have ever eaten. Since I was drunk, I brought this to the server's attention, and he brought the manager out. I told the manager how bad the brownie was, and I offered to go into the kitchen and show them how to make brownies, to which he politely declined. Sarah laughs about this incident now, but she probably wasn't then.

Nowadays I don't drink at restaurants because as I mentioned, it's too expensive, but I also don't trust myself to drive, since such a small amount affects me so much. So I limit it to Christmas time, when I make fruitcakes and cookies loaded with alcohol. I also make an egg nog recipe that came from a cousin, we went to their house for New year's a long time ago, and they had this egg nog on their patio, so it was almost like ice cream, and it was delicious. It was also chock full of alcohol (rum, brandy, and bourbon), but I haven't been able to make mine taste the same as theirs, probably due to the fact that I usually buy the cheap stuff, since I use it for cooking. The bottles I buy usually last a few years, so maybe I should upgrade next time.

Cheers!

Yeah, I know (Christmas Sweet Edition).

Surprised to see me so soon? Me too.

If you know me you know I like to eat. This is one of my favorite times of the year for that activity, because there are lots of Christmas goodies that I really enjoy. One thing is cookies. I don't normally make or eat many cookies during the year, but all bets are off during December. I usually spend a few days and make a variety of 10-15 kinds of cookies, then I distribute them to our jobs and families. After a healthy distribution to myself, of course. One of my favorite specifically Christmas cookies is pfefferneusse, which I used to eat a lot as a kid, then lost touch with for many years. A few years back I discovered that Archway made them every year, and I also found their Fruit Cake cookies (now discontinued), Mexican Wedding Cake cookies, and Cashew Nougats. They are a little expensive, and they don't usually last too long in our house, but this year I thought that I should put a limit on how many of them I eat (Sarah bought me 12 boxes of pfefferneusse last year, because they can be hard to find). I have tried making the pfefferneusse myself on a few occasions, but they never come out right. The Archway cookies have raisin paste in them, which is probably why Mine don't taste right. I have to google raisin paste, maybe I can make it myself.

Another thing I like is stollen, which is a German Christmas bread that has nuts and fruit in it. It can just have raisins, but it can also have the yucky fruit that's in fruitcake that no one likes (I love fruitcake too, but I make my own in early September and pour bourbon on it every week until Christmas or until I break down). I made a stollen at home last year that was awesome, but it didn't translate well at work. I bought one at a German bakery last year as well, and it was good, but not worth the 16 bucks (mine is 5 bucks, albeit a bit smaller). I did find out recently that the German bakery uses a base for the stollen, which made me kind of sad.

Anyway, at one of our local supermarkets, they get the Archway cookies and 3 different kinds of stollen in every year at this time. I usually get the marzipan one, it has a almond paste core running through the bread. I went to this market yesterday, and they had the Archway cookies and the stollen, but this year they also had a competitor for Archway (I forget the brand), and the cookies were cheaper. I picked up a stollen and a box of the competitor's cashew nougats. The competitor didn't have pfefferneusse, but they did have bells and stars sugar cookies, which Archway doesn't make anymore.

I managed to wait until I got home to try the cookies. I ate two of them and that was it for me. There was an overpowering butter flavor taste to them that I didn't like, so I gave them to Sarah to take to work with her. I don't know if the Archway cashew nougats taste like that, it's been awhile since I've had theirs, but I won't try them now. Especially since I tried their two new flavors, Candy Cane and Snow Top. Candy Cane is a white sugar cookie with candy cane bits in it, which I did like, but I don't think I will buy them again (I made a test batch of a recipe from King Arthur Flour of a chocolate cookie with candy cane bits, and while I didn't really like them right after they were baked, they were awesome the next day). Sarah thought they tasted like medicine. The Snow Tops are chocolate cookies with nuts in them, very bland actually. Definitely won't be buying those again.

The same thing happened with the stollen, I even at two slices of it and I didn't really care for it. I'm not sure what this means. Perhaps my tastebuds are being slowly destroyed by my discovery of hot sauce this year? Am I growing out of eating sweets? That would be nice, but all other signs point to no. I think it might be karma. I really enjoy cooking and baking, but I only really bake at work and I don't do too much cooking that is very involved. When I do spend some serious time making a meal, it usually turns out really good. I found a stollen recipe in one of my cookbooks where the method is very similar to the one my dad made in his bakery, so I'm looking forward to trying that. And the weekend after next I have planned for my cookie baking, which Sarah is going to help me with. I'm going to start on Thursday doing prep, because Saturday night is Sarah's office Christmas party, which I am making something for, so I won't be doing cookies that night.

Fair reader, do you have a particular Christmas cookie that you enjoy making/eating? I'm always looking for more to add to my arsenal, so post 'em if you've got 'em.

All done again

This is the last day of Nablopomo, as I said earlier I won't be doing this too often anymore, unless I decide I miss it and pick another month to try Nablopomo. December's theme is zeitgeist, I barely have a grasp of the definition, how am I supposed to write about it 31 times? At any rate, you won't be seeing me complain as frequently as you have this month, right?

There are actually things I have wanted to write about here, but I never got around to it. I have to finish my cat blogs, amongst other subjects that may alienate people. But who knows when they will show up. Anyway, thanks for putting up with my endless ranting about work this month, I'll let you know if I win a prize.

Sour apples

Many years ago we visited a friend who had an iMac, one of the older colored ones. My wife was playing with it and fell in love with it and wanted to get one. I did not, I didn't want to change anything and I didn't know anything about working a Mac. A few years later, the same friend got the first iPod, and Sarah fell in love with that too, but I again did not.

In 2007, after years of our disappointing PC from HP which we couldn't update (Windows ME sucks by the way), we decided to get a Mac. Sarah had already gotten an iPod for Christmas the year before, and she loved it. I was still not convinced by the iPod, but I was more than ready to abandon the PC world. The Mac was expensive, but it was a lot easier to use than I originally thought, and we could use most of the programs that we frequently used on the PC. I also found out that you could actually run Windows on the Mac, but I didn't really want to.

After we got the Mac I started to get into the iPod, mainly for podcasts. I had some music on there, but there wasn't much room on it. Sarah had dreams of me putting my thousands of CDs onto the Mac and getting rid of them all, but that will never, ever happen. I have gotten rid of a few, but the vast majority is going to stay. Sorry sweetie.

That struggle was rendered moot in late 2008 when the DVD-ROM in the Mac broke. I was in the midst of starting to put all of my CDs onto the Mac's hard drive when it happened. We brought the Mac to the Apple Store and they said it would cost over $400 to fix it. Of course, it was out of warranty, so we opted not to fix it and get an external DVD-ROM, which has proven difficult. We are currently borrowing my father-in-law's converted internal DVD-ROM drive, which sounds like an airplane taking off, but it works. But if we want to make our own DVDs with the iDVD program on the Mac, we're screwed, because it doesn't recognize external DVD-ROMS. The fact that it broke after a year and a half of not very much use pissed us off, but Apple wanted money that we didn't have, so we had to let it go.

Last year Sarah bought me the 120 GB iPod Classic for my birthday, because my iPod usage far outweighed hers. Besides podcasts, I started putting all of my music onto it so I could listen to it at work, instead of dragging CDs with me everyday. I bought a little radio with a 1/8 inch input jack and I was in business. Until last month, which was almost a year and a half after I got it. It seems that the headphone jack is this cheap plastic piece of crap that just sits inside the iPod (it's not soldered), and if you frequently put headphones in it, it will eventually move and you'll only be able to get one channel. In my case, only the left channel works through the headphones, and I listen to a lot of older music, where the stereo separation is severe. I'm talking vocals in one channel and instruments in the other channel severe, so I get an instrumental or acappella. It was driving me crazy until I realized that I could convert the songs to mono so it wouldn't be so bad, but of course, that takes time and more space on the iPod. It's basically an enormous pain in the ass and is pissing me off.

You would think that something that didn't have external speakers would have a more stable headphone jack, but of course it doesn't. And also of course, they don't don't make my model iPod anymore, and again want an arm and a leg to fix it. Thankfully, there is a market that has risen up to meet this demand, since it is a common problem with iPods. I have ordered the offending headphone jack and iPod pry tools, and my brother in law (who is handy with such things) has offered to replace it for me, since the online tutorials looked really scary. In the meantime, I have discovered that I can get stereo from the dock connector, but there are caveats. You can't adjust the iPod volume, so it tends to distort if you have it up too loud (read:loud enough to hear over the mixers). Also, I need to use the iPod to TV cable, which is a very long cable, made even longer by the RCA to 1/8 inch plug cable I need to plug into the radio. But at least I can enjoy stereo, as long as the dock connector holds out, since I use that everyday to charge the iPod. Hopefully my brother in law will be able to fix it and Apple has this problem fixed in the next iPod I get.

Now Sarah wants an iPad. I think that we will get the extended warranty if we get one of those.

New career is kaput.

When I was young I had designs on being some sort of writer, as I think I have posted before. When I met Sarah, she was a journalist like me, and I told her I wanted to write a book about my grandfather. She gave me some writing instructional stuff that she had from school and encouraged me a lot, but the closest I got to starting that book was last year on this blog. Nothing since then.

I had hopes that blogging would help me become a better writer (or a writer at all), but I don't think it's working. Just doing Nablopomo every day for a month is really annoying, and as a writer I would have to spend a lot more time on it than I do on my blog. True, life/work gets in the way, but even when it doesn't I can't commit, hence my very infrequent posting when I'm not doing Nablopomo.

I don't know if I'll ever finish the book. My friend Adam is a writer, and he writes a lot and enjoys it. He also submits a lot of stuff to publishers and is rejected, but he makes fun of that and keeps going. I don't think I would be able to deal with that. He and Sarah said that I should write things down about my grandfather on my blog, and maybe collate it all into a book later, which is very easy to do these days. That's a good idea that I think I will try, but once November is over, I don't know what will happen.

Another communication thing I've been wanting to do is a podcast. I love listening to them and I want to join in, because I can be anonymous; I don't really like a lot of attention anymore. I'm not very sociable either, so this way I can reach people without actually interacting with them. I know this is sad, and I don't really have any explanation for it, it just developed gradually since my early 20s, I think. As with writing, I've been hemming and hawing about it for 2 years now. I did record a test that came out decent and I have everything in place for it, but I haven't been able to hit the Commit button yet. The same thing with Librivox, I volunteered to read a chapter of a book two months ago and haven't done it yet. That actually has a due date, so I will get that done, but the book and the podcast don't. I can put a mental due date on them, like this month's blogging, but my other mental parts will rationalize not doing it. My main problem is that I have so many things that I want/need to do that I don't know where to start, so I don't start at all. I somehow need to fix that.

bleah

So I went back to work today after 2 days off, which is unusual (we are closed on Sundays, and they won't let me work then, I asked). It was hard, as post-holiday days always are, mentally and physically. There were about 30 bags of rolls left today, but we did sell more than last year. Lots of pies left as well, but we put all that stuff out for half price today, hoping it would sell so there would be less to throw away on Monday. Throwing stuff away is the last resort, we don't throw out very much stuff at all since the economy tanked. It seems like people wait for stuff to go out of date these days. Which is fine, as I'd rather sell something at half price than throw it away.

It was crushingly slow yesterday, so I baked very conservatively this morning, which turned out to be a big mistake. The bread rack was almost empty when I left at 12.30 (we're open till 7 on Saturdays), and the 3 pumpernickel bread I made didn't even make it out to the sales floor. I do like when that happens, but not that early in the day. I suppose I have to leave sometime, right?

Another nice day

I had the day off from work today to make up for the holiday pay yesterday, which was nice. My sister and brother in law stayed the night, and we went to my work so my sister could check out the gluten free stuff we have for sale. Then we went to the health food store and came back here for leftovers. Then Sarah's sister and her family came over and we played the Wii for awhile, which was a lot of fun. Sarah and I are going to have dinner and then I have to go to bed since I have to work tomorrow. It was a really great Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone has a great day today. I have some cooking and cleaning to do, so I need to get off the internet. I will see half of my readers at dinner, yay! :)

All done

I'm home from work now. We went in at 7 last night and left around 9 this morning. Sarah came in and helped again, and we had to run some errands after work. I am surprisingly not tired, I don't know why. I didn't have any real tired stretches at work either, although I did at one point think that I saw a bird overhead. My knee also started to give out at around 7, probably from carting around my fat ass for so long. But the busiest day of the year is now over, yay!

I looked at what we sold yesterday and was a bit disappointed in the amounts, but my co-worker told me to check last year's sales, and sure enough, we sold more this year. Last year we totally sold out of dinner rolls, and we also had more dinner roll orders this year, so I made more than I did last year, 126 dozen in all. I also made 77 loaves of bread and quite a lot of danish, I'm hoping people will pick those up for breakfast tomorrow (they certainly did last year, although the danish numbers have been down lately). In case you don't know, the dinner rolls are all made by me, and I have to roll them into a round shape, 2 rolls at a time, which is why it takes so long. Plus we don't have that much oven space to work with, and my co-worker is also using the ovens to make pies, of which she did about 300 today, again by herself.

Now I am going to clean up the house a bit, since I haven't done that in awhile.My sister and her husband will be here Friday, and we are going to my work so she can check out the gluten free stuff we have, so then I'll find out how much we sold. My fingers are crossed for another sellout.

Long day

I just got home from work a little bit ago, we went in last night at 9. I made 70 dozen dinner rolls and 50 loaves of bread, among other things. It doesn't seem like a lot, but trust me, it is. When I left there was a little over 50 dozen dinner rolls just for orders tomorrow, so I'm most likely going to have to make twice what I made today. I am going to make some food for tomorrow and set up my coffee and go to bed, as I have to get up in a little over 6 hours and go back. This is what it's like for me every year, Sarah actually takes the week off from her work and comes in and helps us, which is really nice. Okay, I'm really tired, see you tomorrow.

Animals I have seen in the road on my way to work

Dogs.
Cats.
Endlessly multiplying rabbits.
Chickens/roosters/hens (only they know the difference).
Skunks.
Possums.
Hedgehogs.
Mice.
Humans.
Frogs/toads.
Snakes (why did it have to be snakes?)
Ducks.
Raccoons.
Foxes.
Horses (3 times, the first 2 times it was one horse, the last time was about 10 galloping alongside the road).

New addition from this morning: cows. Not one, but seven. They were all in the road and didn't move when I pulled up, so I had to stop. They stared at me like I had four stomachs* but didn't move until I laid on the horn (I was hesitant to do that, as it was midnight, but I had to get to work). DE law states that the owners of said cows or horses are not liable for any damage the animals cause if they manage to escape. That sucks.

*Terrible, terrible joke.

oops

Today I had to go Thanksgiving food shopping and I also made some food for the next few days, so I forgot all about my blog. I did laundry too, and now I have to go to bed since I am going in at midnight. Excuse #1, collect them all!

Gearing up

Today was a long day at work, I tried to get as much ready for next week as I could. Monday through Wednesday next week is basically coming home from a very long day at work, sleeping for a few hours, then going back to work. Hopefully it will not be that bad, but we'll see. I'm starting to get a little anxious about it now.

I am picking up my co-worker at midnight on Sunday night/Monday morning (she is Amish and is not allowed to work at all on Sunday). She does the pies and I do the bread and rolls. We have an overabundance of people working on Monday and Tuesday, which will be good since we only have 4 bakers on Wednesday, which is the big order pickup day. Wednesday usually starts for us on Tuesday night. Sarah is coming to help us also, so that will be good. I guess it was a good thing that I shoveled the sidewalk at KayBee all those years ago. :)

Tomorrow I have to try and get up early and go shopping for Thanksgiving ingredients. The last thing I want to do after work on Wednesday is go shopping, because that's when everyone else is doing it. I am making mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and two kinds of stuffing. That will be easy compared to all the dinner rolls I have to make this week, which I also have to bring to Thanksgiving. It will be tiring, but fun, despite my constant complaints during this time of year that I wish I stayed in school. I don't, really. If I had an office job I think I would be even fatter than I am now.

Friday Shuffle this time

Sorry, I'm really tired from work and I can't think of anything to write. More of non-content to come until Thanksgiving is over.

California Saga/The Beaks of Eagles, The Beach Boys - This is part of a trilogy of songs about nature in California. This part is excruciating.

Don't Hurt My Little Sister, The Beach Boys - From the Beach Boys Today! album, which was a year before Pet Sounds, I believe. It's amazing how much the lyrics improved in a year. You can guess what this song is about.

D & W, They Might Be Giants - From the Here Comes The ABCs album. I was surprised and not surprised when TMBG started putting out albums for kids. It's a really great album though, lots of great songs like "Who Put The Alphabet In Alphabetical Order?" and "The Alphabet Lost And Found."

Zanzibar (My Lives version), Billy Joel - I love this song, this version especially, since the ending jazz jam is extended. I had no idea for a long time that the first verse was about Muhammad Ali (it sounds like he says "Allie"). I read an interview where Billy Joel said that he and his band felt like grownups playing this song.

Oo Ee Baby, Herman's Hermits - I never heard this song until the Hermits' British albums were released on CD. I didn't miss much with this one. There's a lot of stuff that I would like to hear that is still unreleased, although I did get to hear a bit of it courtesy of Andrew Sandoval, who works (or did) for Rhino Records, and wrote a recording sessions book on the Monkees.

Not Behind The Fighter Jet, Guided By Voices - What a great poppy song by GBV, I love the guitar in this one. I wonder how Robert Pollard manages to remember all of his lyrics.

Poorboy Shuffle, Creedence Clearwater Revival - An instrumental track from the Willy and the Poorboys album. It features the band playing the instruments they are sporting on the cover, and are also mentioned in "Down On The Corner."

Don't Need A Reason, Beth Orton - A new addition to the iPod since last time I think. I saw her video for "She Cries Your Name" back when it was new and loved it, so I started picking up her albums. She has a great voice.

Me About You, the Lovin' Spoonful - From the last Spoonful album, after Sebastian and Yanovsky were gone, and the lead vocals were taken over by Joe Butler. I've only heard two of the tracks from this album, and this is not the one that I like, as it plods. "Never Goin' Back" is much better.

Animal, R.E.M. - I loved this song when it first came out (the first time I heard it was at the zoo, if you can dig that). It's one of those songs that comes up almost every time I hit shuffle though, so I've gotten a little sick of it.

Wow, the Beatles own 14% of my iPod, and they didn't show up until #52. That's weird.

Boo!

Here are some excellent step-by-step ways to scare me at work. All methods assume that I am in the building by myself (most days until 5 am):

1.Enter the building way before your scheduled time.
2.Jingle your keys without me seeing you.
3.Come around the corner into the bakery and say, "Hi! I didn't want to scare you, so I jingled my keys."

1.The night before, leave the 18 wheeler in the dock with the overhead door open and the metal plate in that connects the truck to the floor of the dock. Pray that I don't notice this.
2.Wait until I am in the freezer with the fans off, so I can hear.
3.Get in the truck and pull it away from the dock so the metal plate falls to the ground with a large crash, making me rush out of the freezer with fogged up glasses so I can only see the overhead door open.

1.Sneak into the building a few minutes before you're scheduled, when no one else but me is there.
2.Sneak into the bakery area.
3.WHISPER my name from across the bakery while my back is turned to you.

This last one is the most effective, that happened many years ago. The first one happens a few times a year. The second one happened this morning. Luckily I had gone to the bathroom right before I went to the freezer.

Taken to the cleaners?

A few weeks ago I decided I needed new sneakers for work. I wear them out pretty fast at work, as I'm on my feet for at least 8 hours a day and I am almost always moving. I know when I have to get new ones when it's raining and my feet get wet on the short walk from the car to the door. It usually takes me awhile to get them, as I don't really like going anywhere right after work (not to mention take off my shoes in public after work, despite the foot powder that I use), and I can't go anywhere after dinner but bed.

Sarah was off on a Wednesday, which is also my day off, so we ran some errands together. We went to a nearby town where the town center is being revitalized and many of the independent stores have been there for quite awhile. There is a 60 year old shoe store there, and I always thought it was a women's shoe store by the name (which I won't mention, but I'm not sure why). Sarah said it was for men and women, so we went inside.

The first thing I noticed was that is was like walking into the shoe store I used to go to when I was little. It smelled the same, it looked the same, and there were Stride Rite signs everywhere (the store I went to when I was little was Stride Rite in the old Menlo Park Mall, I had to get special shoes made because my left leg is shorter than the right). The proprietor had been sitting and talking with two other older gents, and he jumped up when we came in and asked us how he could help us. I said I needed new sneakers for work, and he asked me what I did. I told him I was a baker, and he said he had just the shoe for me, because he sold the same shoe to a lot of chefs in Rehoboth (a beach town in DE with scads of restaurants). He then told me to follow him so he could measure my foot.

This floored me, to tell the truth. I had not had my foot measured since I was 12 or so. Once I started buying my own shoes, I just bought shoes I liked in whatever size I was (I have gone from 10 1/2 in my late teens to 12 now). Some shoe stores do still have those foot measuring things lying around, but I never used them. I prefer the floor mat version, which I noticed recently that Target has. So I sat down and he pulled up that little stool thing with the foot ramp on the front and proceeded to take off my shoe (he asked first, but it didn't make it any less uncomfortable). After he found out I was a 12, he went back and got a pair of size 12 Converse (not Chucks, I wore those for a log time and my feet are probably suffering for it now), and he put them on. I got up and walked in them, and I was surprised at how comfortable and springy they were. I couldn't believe the guy nailed it on the first try, so I have to give him credit for knowing his product. I figured since they were Converse sneakers they would be no more than 60 bucks, but I never asked. I just took them up to the counter and he mentioned that I never asked, but I said that was fine, they were comfortable and most likely worth the money. He said the price wasn't too bad (his words exactly), they would be 90 dollars.

90 dollars! I have never, ever paid that much for a pair of shoes before. I bristled inwardly, but thinking about the comfort and fit, and the guy being the owner of an independent shoe store, I paid the 90 dollars. I did have some buyers remorse, but only for the price. When I wore them to work I was extremely happy with them, and he did say they were easy to clean, which I need to start doing, because they get gross pretty fast.

After a few days I started thinking that I should get a spare pair of the same Converse, because every time I found a good pair of work sneakers, I would look up the same model when I needed a new pair, and they would always be discontinued (mainly New Balance sneakers). So I typed the pertinent info into Google and found out the actual retail price. Across the board, they were no higher than 45 dollars.

I was pissed! I paid twice as much as I should have, and I was going to leave a nasty review on yelp.com. Luckily, I didn't do it right away and I had some time to think about it. I probably would not have found these sneakers if it wasn't for this guy, so there's that. I wondered if the price would have been lower if I had asked what it was at any time during the fitting, which was really a stupid move on my part. I don't know if that's how much he actually marks these sneakers up, or if he was having a bad sales day and saw an opportunity to make a few extra bucks. Whatever it was, I won't leave a nasty review, but I also won't go back there to get another pair. If they were 60 dollars, I would have been fine with it. But a 100 % markup of the MSRP is just too much. The service was great, and the guy was effusive in his thanks, but I don't know if I could ever go back there. I realize that he has to make a living, but I do too. I'm chalking it up as a learning experience.

Mission accomplished

Yes, that is a clean refrigerator! On the inside, I didn't actually get to the outside, it took about 4 hours just for the inside. There are still Christmas cards from last year hanging on the outside, maybe someday. And it was clean out your fridge day, not clean out your freezer day, so don't ask.

I took all of the shelves out, that was the first time I did that. We got this fridge in 1998, so yeah, ewww. See the drawers on the bottom? I have taken those out and cleaned them before, but I didn't realize the whole assembly came out. There is a glass shelf on top of them that just rests on top of the drawers. I thought it was permanent, but it was actually just some brown goo that was sticking it in place. Once again, ewww.

The drawers used to shriek whenever you pulled them out, but not anymore. Underneath the drawers was pretty bad, how does stuff get down there? Apparently it travels down the back of the shelves, as I found clumps of spilled baking soda down there. I haven't had baking soda in the fridge in at least 2 years. I hope National Clean Your Oven Day is coming up soon.

Happy National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day!

Yes, it really is. This is what our fridge currently looks like, I seem to only clean it when I spill something in it. So I am going to take today to actually clean it out and also get rid of anything old in there, which may not be too bad, I threw a lot of stuff away recently (I found some cream cheese I forgot about, it was very green). With any luck I will actually do this. I will post the results tomorrow. So if you don't see an after picture in tomorrow's blog, you will know that I am a terrible lazy person.

What?!

A few weeks ago I went to an audiologist to get a hearing test. I have been having trouble hearing lately, especially when there's a lot of background noise. I tend to hear different words in place of the real words; for example, the other day I heard my co-worker say she bought a bag of owls but they didn't taste very good. It's funny when I repeat what I think people say, but it also isn't.

The audiologist said that I do have some hearing loss, but not really enough for a hearing aid just yet. When I was younger I had a lot of painful earaches, seemingly once every couple of weeks. I was always at the doctor getting wax flushed out of my ears (I did an allergy scratch test back then, and the result was that I had an allergy to milk (my favorite drink at the time), which caused excess earwax, go figure). That may be a contributing factor. I was playing in bands for 12 or so years when I was in my teens and early 20s, and I went to a lot of club shows during that period, but the audiologist said that probably didn't have much to do with it. I went to a club show a few years ago, and it was the first time that I needed to wear earplugs. And actually, instead of killing the sound like I thought they would, they actually made the music more distinct, instead of the wash of noise that you usually hear at a club show.

The culprit may be the iPod. I never was into listening to music on headphones much until I got into the iPod. I resisted for awhile, Sarah got one for her birthday, but I wanted nothing to do with it. I eventually caved, and she got me one for myself, and it is now a constant companion. I have earbuds, the regular Walkman-type headphones, and a pair of ear-encompassing headphones. The audiologist said that a good rule of thumb for if your iPod is too loud is if people around you can make out what you're listening to. I cut the grass with my iPod on, and I used the ear-encompassing headphones for that so I can hear the music. One time this summer I was listening to A Day In The Life by the Beatles, and the orchestra buildup in the song actually drowned out the sound of the mower. I think that's when I realized that I had better start turning it down.

I always thought I had a mild version of tinnitus, because every once in awhile one of my ears would close up a bit and there would be a high pitched sound in there. This has been happening as long as I can remember, so that's probably due to the earaches, but the audiologist said it wasn't tinnitus. What he did say was that I have trouble hearing higher pitched sounds, which means women's voices, which is mainly what I hear all day, as I work with all women and am married to one. At work it's really bad, because there's a lot of background noise, and I have to have them repeat things 3 or 4 times sometimes.

I do say What quite often, but I have tried to vary it since I use it so much. I say Pardon, Excuse Me, and my favorite, I'm Sorry? I got that one from Die Hard, where Hans Gruber doesn't hear what one of his henchman says, and says I'm Sorry in order for him to repeat it. Saying What is also a reflex, I do say it sometimes when I've heard what the person said to me, which is kind of weird. Another thing I do is to repeat back what the person said if I can catch myself before saying what. I just need to concentrate and listen and stop saying What if I don't have to, because it gets annoying for the person that is talking. I can just picture myself as an old man (say, 48 if I keep up my iPod habits) with a giant ear trumpet saying What all the time, and scaring all the children.

Random bird

The other day I was driving nearby the house. The road I was on is a two lane road, not really a highway, but the speed limit is 50. The road is in a residential area, so driveways are right off of the road. I was in a line of about 3 cars and we were all going the speed limit. I saw a guy on my right walking from his house to his mailbox at the end of the driveway, but he was facing away from the line of cars. Then I noticed that he was giving the cars the finger as he was walking. We weren't speeding and we weren't making a lot of noise, just general car noise. I was so stunned by this that I didn't think to beep until well after I passed him and his bird. It was a weird sight.

Opposite Day

Yesterday was a great day, mainly at work. I woke up and I didn't feel tired like I usually do, and my shoulder that has been bothering me wasn't. My back felt pretty good (I have a protruding disc at L5, which comes and goes), and the plantar fasciitis in my heel wasn't bothering me either. With the fasciitis and my shoulder, I usually have to walk down the stairs sideways, one step at a time. I do exercises for my heel, but I have not been to the doctor for my shoulder yet (I'm sure that is in Sarah's list of things to do, I hate talking on the phone so she makes all of my appointments). So none of that stuff was bothering me.

I had a lot of work to do yesterday, and everything fell into place beautifully, and all the bread looked really great. As did everything else. I usually get some help around 4.30 am, but not on Thursdays, but I was chugging along really well and I didn't need it. I even got a couple things done at home too. I kicked some ass yesterday.

Today I got kicked in the ass. I woke up in pain from everywhere, tired and not wanting to go to work. I screwed up a few mixes today and overproofed a lot of stuff, but luckily didn't burn anything. There was a lot of yelling and cursing going on. That has to happen before 4.30, because I don't like doing that in front of the people at work (plus, I can be fired for cursing). So I was having a big pity party for myself for most of the day. I know that it's all in your attitude, but it was so hard to get out of that funk this morning, I did try once people started coming in. It eventually lifted but I was still in wanting to go home mode, and I was able to leave early, after 9 hours, which kind of sucks. Oh well, you win some, you lose some. The challah did look really good today though, so there's that.

Sourdoughmania

I make sourdough bread at work. Usually the mix I make gives me 6 loaves, and I make mostly round ones and a long one sometimes. 6 loaves is not a lot, really, but they have been selling out everyday. So I started to make a mix and a half, which, if you do your math correctly, gives you 23 loaves. I mean 9 loaves, sorry. Now those have been selling out too. All the bread has been selling really well in the past few weeks. I don't know if it's just the fact that it's colder (our business picks up a lot when it gets cold), or more people like my bread. I have been getting a lot of compliments on it lately, which is really great.

Maybe it could be the sourdough starter I use. I first started making sourdough bread at work in 2002, and I made a starter from scratch. I am still using that starter today. Before you say eww gross, I feed it almost everyday, which means I make a new batch of starter and mix it in with the old. Plus I use milk instead of water, so it gets even more sour. And I throw a little cider vinegar in there too. A lot of people hate the smell when I open the bucket, but I love it. Sometimes it smells like apples for some reason.

I have not tried actual sourdough bread from San Francisco, which I think is where sourdough originated. There is a lot of yeast in the air in that area, and they don't even put yeast in the starter there, from what I have read. I think that's pretty awesome, and eating a loaf of authentic San Francisco sourdough bread is on my bucket list. Wow, I used bucket twice in this blog. Seems like a good ending point.

No, today is Veteran's Day. Instead of using this day to go shopping for something cheap that you don't really need (yes, I see the irony that the first part of this post was about shopping), say thank you to a veteran for putting their life on the line so we can have the freedom to make stupid blogs like this. Thank you Kevin!

Back to Facebook.

Earlier this year I decided that I needed to get off Facebook, because it was taking up a lot of time (I have no willpower when it comes to the internet). I managed to stay off for awhile, but I missed seeing what some of my friends and my family were up to, so I signed up again, under an alias. I used an alias because I didn't need the amount of friends I had the first time, so no one would be able to find me under an alias. No one figured it out.

Today, I decided to change back to my real name. Why? I'm not sure. The decision to leave Facebook and rejoin under a psuedonym were contemplated for awhile, this was a spur of the moment decision. I already got back one friend that I'm really happy about, so I think it's a good idea. We'll see if it reverts back to a massive timewaster. I vote yes.

The first death that affected me

When I was 7, my grandfather passed away. He was my mom's dad and the first of my grandparents to pass away. He came to America from Poland 16 years before he died, so he still had a heavy Polish accent. I only saw him once a year, and when I did, I didn't understand him very well. The only memory I really have of him is him sitting at his kitchen table and smoking and talking with my parents and my aunt and grandmother. I think that all these things made me sort of unaffected by his death. I didn't really know what death was at 7 years old. I think I was sad because my mom and grandmother and aunt were sad. There's a picture of me from the funeral home, I'm wearing my little suit and sitting in a chair in the hallway. I think I spent a lot of time in that chair during the viewings for my grandfather, away from the grieving.

When I was 11, I was friends with a boy named Michael, who was a grade below me. We were in the Cub Scouts together, and we spent time at each other's house. One day at school we had an argument about something, I forget what it was now. We didn't speak to each other for a few days. Then the weekend came and I probably forgot about the argument.

On Monday we found out that Michael and his father had taken a boat on a fishing trip over the weekend. I think there was a storm of some kind, and they never came back. They found Michael first, and his dad a week or so later. They had a funeral for both of them, and we went as a Cub Scout troop. Michael was buried in his Cub Scout uniform, but his father had a closed casket, because he was in the water for so long. I felt so bad for Michael's mom, he was an only child, and she had just lost her entire family.

I also felt terrible about the argument I had with Michael. I spent a lot of time wishing that I had spoken to him before the weekend, instead of having our last words to each other be in anger. And after all, he was only 10 years old. 10 years olds don't die, older people do. When you're 10 or 11 years old, or hell, even 40 years old, you think you have all the time in the world. But sometimes you don't.

The worst part about getting older

I turned 40 last December. It wasn't a big deal to me, it was just another birthday. I don't feel old at all, I still think of myself as a kid sometimes. Granted, I have abused my body with food over the years and I have aches and pains, but I can still walk it off. I forget things too, I go into a room for something and forget what it was. It used to be that if I went back to the original spot, I would remember, but I can't rely on that anymore. But I remember eventually.

My hair has been falling out and clogging up the shower drain for years. I can tell that my hairline in front is higher than it used to be. I really don't care if I lose it all, it's one less thing to do everyday. It's gotten fairly gray too, though not as gray as my beard. I really like the gray in my beard, but Sarah doesn't like the beard at all. I have a goatee for maybe a month until I get tired of trying to trim it, then I get rid of it.

The one thing I cannot stand that's been happening recently is the proliferation of nose hair. I can't grow a really thick mustache, but I think if I let my nose hair grow for a few weeks it would be a perfect mustache. Yes, this is gross.

Where do they all come from? It's not like there's a lot of space in there. I used to pluck them, but it makes me tear up and sneeze and it hurts, so I stopped. I bought a trimmer for my nose and my eyebrows (my eyebrows get really bushy, and yes, I know that's also gross that I use one trimmer for both, it's not yours!). It seems like I'm sticking that thing in my nose everyday. There's so much hair in there that it has actually shut down the trimmer a few times. I know you're supposed to have nose hairs to filter out junk from the air you breathe, but come on. Maybe I don't have allergies at all, maybe I'm just clogged up with nose hair.

The worst feeling is a nose hair that's sticking out or into the other side of the nostril, and that makes me feel like I have a visible booger in my nose, which is something I'm very paranoid about. Then I have to go to the bathroom and check it to make sure it's not a booger, which is a waste of time because it's always a stupid hair. I know the one time I let it go, it's going to be a booger, and no one is going to be nice enough to point it out to me.

I can't wait until I start getting ear hair. :P

This one time, at band camp...

I thought I wrote about this already, but I didn't see it. Pardon me if I missed it.

I took up the drums at school in 3rd or 4th grade. When I got to high school, I joined the marching band. I carried the biggest bass drum, because I was the biggest bass drummer. High school band was a rough adjustment for me, but most of my friends were in the band too, so we stuck together and that made it a little easier.

The first year we had band camp at the school, and the 3 years after that we went to summer camps in Pennsylvania. It was the usual teenage hormone knives sticking out of your leg roaming the grounds at 3am setting deodorant on fire littering bug juice gambling vandalism band camp experience. However, no one I knew did anything untoward with a flute.

The first couple of band camps for me were fine, but the last one before my senior year was problematic. I had developed some sort of pain in my side (I have forgotten which one) whenever I carried the bass drum, so much so that I had to play the drum from the sidelines. I think it may have also happened a few times in my junior year, because I remember being in my uniform and watching the halftime show from the stands. I went to a gastroenterologist and they did a bunch of tests, but they found nothing wrong. Still, the pain persisted and I stayed on the sidelines for awhile. I think it did finally go away that year and I rejoined the halftime show in the field, but I never did figure out what was wrong with me.

I have never had a recurrence of this pain since then, but I haven't had anything heavy strapped to myself for long periods of time either (save for my ample belly). I have come to the conclusion that it was psychosomatic. I thought maybe it was nerves, but I was also in a rock band at the time and had no problem singing and playing in front of people. It also could have been the fact that my girlfriend at the time was playing on the sidelines, and I was jealous then. Or it could have just been me vying for attention, I was 17 at the time after all. I think that I have grown out of the attention thing though, at this point in my life I would rather be anonymous to the general public. Hmm, maybe that's due to that pain I had back then. Whatever it is or was, I don't worry about it anymore, but it was a good topic to get through one more day of nablopomo.

OT

Yesterday at work I got my yearly review. Like I mentioned earlier, I am a dedicated worker there and they appreciate it and treat me accordingly. The one thing my boss said was to cut down on my overtime. This is the busiest time of the year for me, but the overtime I had on my previous check was probably the most I've ever had there.

Up until last week, we were doing two weekly specials, just about every week. We would pick something, cut the price, and make a lot of it everyday and sell as much as we could. The original hope for this was to get people interested in buying the product at the regular price after the special was over, which didn't really work out like that, save for maybe 2 or 3 items. It did involve copious amounts of time spent making one item though, which is why I had all of that overtime. My co-worker that usually helps me out with the specials was off for a week and a half, so I was doing it all myself. I didn't realize I had that much overtime until I got my check, but I didn't actually get reprimanded for it, my boss just mentioned it at the time. But obviously she was concerned about it since she brought it up. Plus, I actually realized that something at work was too much for me and did something about it. I told them that we had to stop the specials until January because it was too much to handle right now. If this was 2 or 3 years ago I would have kept on doing them, but I think I have finally realized what my limitations are. I probably haven't, but it sounded good, right?

I like my job

In a few weeks I will have been at my current job for 9 years. In April it will be the longest I have worked anywhere (current champ right now is at my parents' bakery). A lot has changed in the past 9 years, I am the only one left in the bakery from when it opened, yes, 9 years ago. My boss is still there but she doesn't do any baking anymore. The bakery was her idea and she worked it for a few months, then left it to us. A lot of people have come and gone, many that I don't remember at all. I can see their faces but I don't remember their names. It's kind of strange that you can see someone for 4 or 5 days a week for months at a time, then later you can't remember them.

We have two stores now, but there is no bakery in the new store, which was a bummer because it's closer to my house. What isn't a bummer is that the bakery is the most requested thing at the new store. Score one for us. They have been talking about transferring stuff from our store to the new store, but I really don't see how it's going to work right now, we are pretty swamped. Maybe in January.

I've been having trouble sleeping lately, so it's making me tired at work, but it doesn't diminish my love for baking or getting up at 1 am to do it. I don't think I could do a 9 to 5 job anymore, I like getting all of my work out of the way before most people eat their lunch. Plus it's necessary, we have limited oven space and the bread takes longer to get to the oven than anything else, and I have to make way for the second shift to start baking when they come in at 7. It is very hectic sometimes, especially when I'm by myself, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

They treat me well there, very well. If I want to try something I can, if I need a small piece of equipment I can get it. They gave me a key to the store a few months after I started, so I must be doing something right. Either that or they didn't want to get up that early anymore.

I don't know if this is true for everyone, but my job means a lot to me, and I want to make sure that I do it right. I do tend to go overboard, and I usually have to get pulled back in by my very understanding wife. But everything is worth it when someone gives me a compliment or says that they traveled a long way to buy something that I have made. It's a nice feeling.

The Lazy Return of Thursday Shuffle

It was a long day at work today, and I have some things I need to do today before I go to bed early for another long day tomorrow. So yay, Thursday Shuffle!

The Old Grunt - Guided By Voices-I forget how I got into GBV, I think it was just by reading about them. This is from Mag Earwhig! where I think they started getting into more 3 minute pop stuff. The earlier albums are very avant-garde. "Did his wife in with Dueling Banjos" is a great line.

Reckoner - Radiohead-I like In Rainbows a lot, but it's not my favorite of theirs. I don't know what is though. Definitely not the first album.

Allentown (Live) - Billy Joel-This is from 12 Gardens Live, where he pulled out a lot of obscure stuff and lowered the key of every song, presumably so he could hit the high notes. This is probably my least favorite song on The Nylon Curtain.

The Scoop - The Beastie Boys-I am really just starting to get into the Beastie Boys, I am very familiar with Paul's Boutique, but not this one. I can't listen to them at work because of the Amish and Mennonite women that work there.

Arousing Thunder - Grant Lee Buffalo-I got into them via the Mockingbirds video, the Mighty Joe Moon album is awesome. I didn't like the next album too much, then Paul Kimble left and they put out this great album. Not my favorite on the album though, but it does hark back to MJM while most of the rest of the album is very rock based.

Russ - The Inbreds-This is an obscure bass and drums band from Canada, and they currently are my #2 album of all time (Kombinator). This is from a stray tracks collection (Hilario) and it's a great song. There's another band called Inbreds which are more metal, this ain't them.

It Came Out Of The Sky - CCR-Much like John Lithgow in the Twilight Zone movie, I love Creedence. More so in high school, I think, and we did a cover of this song in one of the bands I was in because we each got to pick a song to cover. We told a friend of ours who later became our drummer that we wrote this and he believed us. There was a lot of that when we were young.

Pressure - Billy Joel-Another song from the Nylon Curtain, definitely one of my favorites of his. BJ tends to make embarrassingly bad videos, and I think this is one of them.

The Boy From New York City - The Ad-Libs-I actually grew up on the Manhattan Transfer version from the early 80s version, but they put a little too much vocalising into it. I prefer this simpler version these days.

The Hot Rock - Sleater-Kinney-Sleater-Kinney can rock really hard and do really great mellow stuff too, and this song is of the latter variety. The interplay of Carrie and Corin's vocals is excellent, and even better when all three are singing. This is one band breakup that really bummed me out. I'm glad we got to see them live.

The end, maybe more content tomorrow. Then again, maybe I won't. :)

Ooh, Mac The Knife! Overdone at karaoke, but still an awesome version by Bobby Darin. EEK!

A Childhood Dream Come True

I don't think I've written about this yet, I'm too lazy to check, and I have never tagged anything, so you get what you get.

Remember the Scholastic Book Fairs in elementary school? They would take over a classroom for a few days, and there would be books piled everywhere that you could buy. It was heaven for me. It was a lot better than the catalog, where they had only a smattering of books and then you had to wait for them to be shipped to the school. I did love getting Dynamite magazine from the catalog, but I can't remember if they had them at the fair.

One of the books that I bought at the book fair when I was 8 or 9 in the late 70s was the Guinness Book of World Records. I absolutely loved that book, I used to pore through it everyday. I think I first heard about it on the Brady Bunch episode where Bobby and Cindy are trying to go for the see-saw record. I believe it was also the first time I saw a current picture of Paul McCartney. I was a burgeoning Beatles fanatic and at that time, had only seen pictures of them as Beatles (I think Paul was in there for songwriting).

The entry that most captivated me was for the World's Quietest Room. At that time, it was located in Bell Labs, in my home state of NJ! I had no concept of where it was, but I knew that it was close by. The entry mentioned that you were able to hear your own heartbeat while in the room, I think that's what really got me. I built up an image in my brain of a dark room with red lights all over the place, trying to match the air of mystery the room had in my head. (I was also fascinated with the phone at the time, which is much different than it is now. My family went to Sears once, and I remember seeing a darkened inside window, and I could see red LED lights and make out the outline of a person inside. I asked my mom and dad what it was, and they said it was a switchboard room for the telephone system in the store (my mom was a phone operator at one time). So I think I transferred that mystery to the Quiet Room.) I read the entry over and over and dreamed of going into the World's Quietest Room. But eventually, I grew older and forgot about it and the Guinness Book.

In 1995, I started working for the food service contractor Aramark. The building that Aramark was servicing was AT&T in Murray Hill. Murray Hill was vaguely familiar to me, and I thought it was because of the sign for it on Rte. 22. But you know where this is going already, right?

On my first day of work, I found out that my friend's dad also worked in the building, and both of us were very surprised to see each other. We caught up a little and saw each other a lot at work over the years I worked there. His son and I were in a band together, so we talked about music a lot (he was also a musician).

Eventually I found out that I worked in the same building as the World's Quietest Room! I asked my friend's dad about it and told him my story. He told me that it was indeed in the building, and that it was no longer the World's Quietest Room, which made me a little sad. I don't know if I broached the subject of my seeing the room, but he didn't take me there then.

On my last day at Aramark, my friend's dad came to the kitchen and asked me to come with him for a little while, and I got pretty excited. He took me into an auditorium and showed me the sound system that was there, which was pretty cool. Then we were standing at the door of the World's Quietest Room! It was nothing like what I had dreamed about. First of all, it was huge. Wikipedia says it's wedge shaped, but I recall more of an oval, but it was a long time ago now. You entered the room in the middle of the wedge/oval, and the floor was made of some kind of netting (the engineer in there told me what it was, but I have forgotten). It was a little rough walking through there, but upon entering, it felt as if your ears closed up on you, but you could still hear. You know how when you hold your ears shut with your fingers, and you can hear yourself in your own head? It was like that, but much clearer, and of course you weren't holding your ears.

One of the coolest things that the engineer showed me was when he walked a few feet away from me, and his voice had the same volume as it did when he was standing next to me. Then we all stopped talking for a minute, and sure enough, I could hear my own heart beating (it was going pretty fast at the time!).

Even though I had forgotten about the room and it had lost its worldly stature, it was still one of the coolest things I have ever done. And my friend's dad was the best for taking me to see it and fulfilling a childhood fantasy. Thanks Al!

Yay, it's Christmas!

Christmas officially started today, for me. My adoring fans may remember last years November blog post about foods I like to eat and make at Christmas, mainly Archway pfefferneusse. I am friends with Archway on Facebook, and they said their holiday cookie assortment would be available on November 1. I made it to the store that usually has them after work today, and there they were! There are two new varieties this year, one is a choclate cookie called Snow Top and the other is a sugar cookie with candy can bits in it called, oddly enough, Candy Cane. OMG the Candy Cane cookies are awesome. I did not buy the Snow Tops because I am trying to eat better and I had to buy some pffeferneusse. I just wished they still made the fruit cake cookies, those were awesome. I was inspired by them to find a recipe for work, and they sell pretty well, plus they have a longer shelf life because they are filled with booze. You should see the Amish woman's noses wrinkle when I soak my fruit in bourbon (that's not a euphemism for anything, just so you know). The store also had, as an added bonus, Southern Comfort egg nog (booze not included, dang it). I also make my own egg nog at Christmas/New Year's, but I don't drink it on school nights because it too is filled with booze.

You may be wondering if I'm a lush, if that is still a PC term. I am, but just at Christmas time, and as long as the booze is in something. Although I generally will dump some bourbon or brandy in the pancakes whenever I make those. Go ahead, try it and tell me you don't like it.

Anyway, sorry about that. I get the Baking Sheet, which is a quarterly, uh, magazine is probably too generous a term, and pamphlet is too stingy, so I don't know. King Arthur Flour puts it out and it is chock full of recipes, and the most recent one is for the holidays, and this year there is a pfefferneusse recipe which I want to try. The Archway has raisin paste in it, but the Baking Sheet version doesn't, so we'll see how it goes.

Wow, it's great to see that I haven't lost any of my writing skills.

This is not my fault

It's National Blog Posting Month again, and my friend Monica has shamed me into joining again this year. How did she do it? She wrote on my Facebook wall, I provided my own shame. as is my wont. But it will be fun, I'd rather be doing something active on the internets than passive. So he says.

The keyboard just said low battery, so I have to wrap this up. Plus I have to go to bed. So I will end with a quote from one of the trick or treaters last night, it was a boy of around 10 or 11, and really, it's a life lesson in one sentence:

"I have no skin, and I regret nothing!"

You can't get much more succinct than that, right?

Christmas Disappointment, Atari Style

Non-video game geeks, bear with me here.

Say it's Christmas, 1987. You and every other kid in the universe want a Nintendo. Your parents or whatever adult figure in your life know this, but maybe they're not really clear on what a video game is, or they're hopelessly behind the times. Maybe they're turned off by the 200 dollar price tag. Maybe they have fallen prey to a salesperson who wants to get rid of old stock.

Christmas morning comes, and you rush downstairs and go for the box that you think the NES is in. You hurriedly and excitedly tear open the wrapping to find...

An Atari 2600. Junior. In 1987.

This scenario popped into my head yesterday because we went to a Goodwill, and I found a box full of 2600 games with a 2600 Jr. console, which I bought (I collect them). I noticed there was nary a Combat cart among the 41 carts in the box, nor a Pac-Man, both of which were pack-in carts for the original 2600.. There was a late 80s version of Space Invaders (you can tell by the label), and a few other late 80s games, as well as a few reissued games from the late 70s-early 80s.

The Atari 2600 Jr. was released in 1985 or 86. It apparently was ready a few years before that, but the Video Game Crash put an end to it, until the NES came along to resurrect video games. I think the reasoning behind releasing the 2600 Jr. in the heyday of the NES was to get rid of old stock, and to be able to say that the 2600 Jr. played more games than the NES. Not that they were better, because they definitely were not. Well, that's subjective.

So what I think happened was perhaps that mom and dad saw the huge NES price tag, then saw the lesser Atari price tag (under $50), and also saw that the games were also dirt cheap compared to the NES (I remember seeing 2600 games at Pathmark for a dollar in the mid 80s). So their precious child could have more games for the same price, and could get a lot more games cheaper from their paper route or lawn mowing money. They also could have been out of touch with video games, and figured that the cheap one was just as good as the expensive one. Whatever the reason, I could feel some one's Christmas morning tears welling up through that box of games.

Candid Camera is now Punk'd, I Guess

Yesterday I went to the bank, and I went through the drive-through lane. There were three lanes in total, and I went into the empty one. While I was waiting, the person in the far lane got the tube thingy back, and they proceeded to back out of the drive-through lane. Obviously there was no one behind them, but there also wasn't anything blocking their way forward. The person next to me had a small trailer behind their truck, and they also backed out of the drive-through lane. There was plenty of room for them to get through the front with the trailer. I was perplexed by this time, and I looked all around for hidden cameras, but saw none (that's why they're called hidden, I suppose). I resolved that I was not going to be one of those people who just blindly does what other people do before them, wrong or not, and left in a forward motion. Thankfully I did not explode or run over a bunch of glass or end up on Youtube, but it was strange nonetheless.

Breaking The Law (Unintentionally)

I consider myself a law-abiding citizen. Not just federal law, but really rules of any kind, which I suppose is boring to some people. I don't really speed much anymore; my last speeding ticket was 10 years ago, but this decision grew out of my very first car accident 4 years ago, which wasn't my fault. I try my best to keep on the straight and narrow in everything I do. Having said that, I'm going to tell you about the time I broke into a Burger King.

My friend Jeff and I became obsessed with Pink Floyd while in high school, and we heard that tickets were going on sale for a Roger Waters solo show in Madison Square Garden. We decided that we would go and wait in line for tickets at midnight, figuring there would be a long line. We hit the Foodtown and bought lots of drinks and snacks to tide us over, then we headed to the late Cheap Thrills in New Brunswick, which was the closest place that was selling tickets to the show.

We got there around midnight, and there wasn't anyone there. There was a parking lot behind the store, so we parked there and waited for awhile in the car, thinking that we would go and get in line when someone else showed up. By 3 am, no one had come, and we needed to go to the bathroom. We got out of the car and started to walk up the street, and we saw a Burger King that was lit up. We assumed that it was open since all the lights were on. The fact that we didn't see anyone didn't bother us, since it was 3 in the morning.

Jeff grabbed the handles on both of the glass entrance doors and pulled them open. We went straight back to the bathroom and decided to get some food on our way out. We went to the counter and looked at the menu for a few minutes, waiting for someone to come and take our order. No one did, so we ended up leaving. On our way out, we noticed that one of the doors that we had opened had a deadbolt sticking out of it. Technically, the doors were locked, but the door without the deadbolt wasn't deadbolted to the ground, so that's why we were able to open them. When we realized that we had just walked into a closed and locked Burger King, we freaked out and tried to put the doors back, to no avail. We speed-walked back to the car, hoping that no one had seen us.

The smart thing to do, of course, would have been to leave, but the Roger Waters tickets were far too important, so we stayed in the parking lot. No one ever came by, so we thought we were in the clear. People started to appear around 7 and we got out of the car to get in line. At around 8, a police car that was riding by came to a halt right where we were standing. We were sure we were going to be arrested and tried to disappear into the sidewalk. The policeman only rolled down his window and asked what the line was for. Someone else answered and the policeman went about his business, much to our relief. After that, we never waited in line for tickets again.

I was reminded of this incident yesterday when I went to the ATM. The ATM at our bank is on the side of the building, and you can drive up to it. Unfortunately, there is usually a lot of glare on the screen, making it hard to see. I was trying to make a withdrawal, and somehow I managed to get to the DOS menu screen for the ATM! I once again freaked out, thinking that the bank was going to think I was trying to steal money from the ATM. Luckily I was able to see the last option on the menu, which was "8 Return." I pressed 8 and it went to a screen that said the ATM was not in service. I was about to pull away when it went back to the normal screen, and I was able to make my withdrawal. I am hopeful that this will be my last act as a criminal, because it's very stressful.

Savannah Vacation, in Food

If you know us, you know we like to eat, and you know we plan our vacational food visits before we figure out where to stay. We went to Savannah GA this past week for Sarah to attend a Wordpress conference, and it was no different this time.

We took two days to arrive, stopping in Raleigh NC on the way. We ate at a couple places there, but they were not very memorable. When we arrived in Savannah we stayed at a motel called The Thunderbird Inn, which is a 1950s motor hotel that has been restored to its former glory. It was a pretty nice stay, despite the fact that we had to call 911 on our fighting neighbors at 2 am the first night, and were awakened by a drunk person trying to get into our room at 3 am the next night. The food in the area definitely made up for it.

Sarah loves barbecue, so the first place we went in Savannah was Wiley's Championship BBQ, which was a little confusing to get to, and very small inside. I had always wanted to try BBQ brisket, and it was delicious. Sarah had the pulled pork, but I think she liked the sauce better than the pork, so we got a bottle to go. I had the potato salad, and it was most definitely the best potato salad I ever ate.

For our first breakfast in Savannah, we went to J Christopher's, which I just found out is a chain in Georgia. Our vacation rule is to stay away from chain restaurants, unless it is a regional chain that we don't have near us. The vibe was more coffee house than breakfast place, there was art on the walls and it had almost a warehouse atmosphere. One of the front windows was a large garage door, and we wondered if it had been a garage or a firehouse long ago. The food was okay, I am usually upset when I order corned beef hash (my favorite) and it is the pre-made kind, which is what happened here.

That was not the case at Clary's Cafe on Abercorn St. The hash was excellent, Sarah got these huge pancakes that were delicious (but she couldn't eat them all), and the service was excellent. The biscuits were heavenly. the atmosphere was definitely better for us, even though we don't go out to eat for the atmosphere.

Sarah picked a pub for dinner called Molly MacPherson's. The reason she picked it is because they had Scotch Eggs on the menu, which is something I've wanted to try for a long long time. In case you don't know, a scotch egg is a hard-boiled egg wrapped in sausage and deep fried. The epitome of healthy eating! It was really good though, but not something you want to eat every night. When we got there, I started to think that maybe we should go somewhere else, because it was a small bar that served food, and I thought the food was going to be mediocre. Thankfully I was wrong. I had the fish and chips, which I always get in a place like this, and it was really very good. It was light, which is surprising for fried food, and it wasn't a huge portion, which was nice. We also had the sticky toffee pudding for dessert, which is something else I've wanted to try for awhile, and it was incredible.

Sarah found a place online that we probably wouldn't have found otherwise. The Masada Cafe is actually a church (United House of Prayer for All People) that raises money by selling food from a cafeteria-style setting. It is traditional southern cooking, and it's inexpensive and delicious. The people there were very friendly and talked to us about our trip. The ribs there were awesome.

On the way home we hit two soul food restaurants, Vick's Drive-In in Fayettville NC and Ann's Wings and Things in Stafford, VA. Both had traditional southern food on the menu, like chitlins and pig's feet, which I am frightened of. At Vick's, we both got the cheeseburger and fries, which was way better than it had any right to be. It looked like a frozen or pressed patty, but it was amazingly soft and delicious. I got the ribs at Ann's, which were great, but not as good as Masada's. What was good was the baked beans, which I think were the best I ever had. I got to sample Sarah's turkey dinner, as she was not too fond of it. I liked it a lot, it came with cornbread stuffing and was smothered in gravy. I was perplexed by the amount of mashed potatoes she left, until I ate them (they put vinegar in it).

Sarah's favorite place (I think) was Mrs. Wilkes' Dining Room in Savannah. They open for 3 hours a day, and there are 10 person tables inside where strangers all sit together. There is a long line, but luckily we got there a little early and made it in by noon. When you get inside the tables are covered with all manner of southern dishes. The meat on the day we went was fried chicken, which was great. There were a ton of side dishes too, all the southern favorites. You just grabbed a bowl and passed it around the table. The last time I had a meal like that was when I was 8 and I visited my Aunt Emma in South Carolina. On Sunday morning she was in the kitchen making a ton of food and the table looked pretty much the same. It was the most vegetables that we ate on the trip too, so that was good.

My favorite place was The Breakfast Club on Tybee Island, which is about a half hour from Savannah. This place also had a line out front, but we didn't have to wait as long as at Mrs. Wilkes. I love breakfast, especially if it involves eggs and some sort of meat (I have made myself an egg sandwich with hot dogs on it). This place had so many interesting egg dishes that it was hard to decide, but I got a scramble that had kielbasa in it (the owners are originally from Chicago), and it was incredible.I don't normally eat grits unless I'm in the South, and these were by far the best grits I've ever had, just served with butter So good. The best part was we sat at the counter right in front of the grill so we could watch the cooking. They had one guy on the end doing prep and making waffles and replacing empty stuff; then two cooks on the grill in the middle making everything; and I think the owner on the other end finishing and plating. It was beautiful to watch, like a breakfast ballet. I harbor thoughts of doing that myself, so it was a learning experience for me.

All in all, there were very few disappointments, although a major one for me was being plagued with bad coffee. It wasn't all horrible, but nothing was better than I could make at home, which made me very sad. The absolute worst cup I had was in a cafe, of all places.

Some of you who have dined with us in the past may notice the absence of food pictures, which we like to take when we go out. I think it was just that the food looked so good, we just forgot to take them.

Happy Flag Day

I made this bread at work this morning, in honor of Flag Day. This is something I've wanted to try since Sarah explained caning with fimo clay to me, quite a few years ago. Of course, since that is done with clay, you don't get the problem of rising. I staggered the star section, but because of the rise over the top of the pan, it's a little out of wack. Still, I think it looks pretty neat.

I made four loaves to sell in the store. The four loaves took me a half hour just to put into the pan, so I had to raise the price from $2.50 to $3.25. I wanted to make it $2.95, but I really didn't think that was enough. The coolness factor of the bread might get clipped by the price. I'll find out in the morning.

I'm not sure if people even know about Flag Day anymore. I'm curious as to how many people will look at the bread and wonder why the hell we have flag bread such a long time before 4th of July. I have trouble selling colored breads to our customers anyway, many of them probably think that it's weird and tastes different because of the dye (especially the Amish folks, this is definitely not a plain bread). But that won't stop me! I'll probably have better luck on July 3rd, which is a Saturday. If I can get people to buy bread with dyed hard-boiled eggs in it, I should be able to get them to buy this.

Extra special Flag Day wishes to my friend Jenny, but I'm not telling you why.

Lost in the Supermarket

When I got to work this morning, there was a cat underneath the store van. I walked a little closer to see it, and I realized that it was Byler #2, with whom I had been previously acquainted. Let me explain that.

Several years ago in December, I got to work one morning, and as was my habit, I went around the store and checked all the doors to make sure they were locked. I didn't turn on the lights in those areas, because there was usually enough light to walk to the door and check it. I was in the back room of the stove shop when I saw something move across the door leading into the bakery. It was a big something, not rodent sized, and it scared the heck out of me. Right near that door are stairs going down into the crawlspace, which is where the big something came from. I went to work and forgot about it.

A few days later, I was walking past the deli cooler, and I noticed the meat ends packages were open and bitten into (the deli throws the ends of the cold cuts into a package and sells them). I didn't know what to make of that, as I had forgotten about the big something I saw.

A couple days after that, I was checking the same door, and someone had left the light on near the stairs. When I turned from the door, there was a small gray cat standing there. When I turned, it bolted into the crawlspace. I ran over to see if i could catch it, but it was gone somewhere under the building. I now had the culprit for the missing meat ends. I could smell cat urine down there too. There was a lot of gravel down there, so she was probably using it as a giant litter box.

The next day I was out in the store (in the early am, so I was by myself), and I saw movement from the corner of my eye, and I quickly turned around and saw the cat again. Only this was a brown cat. So now there were TWO culprits eating the meat ends. When the managers came in, I told them that I saw two cats in the building. They explained to me that they had recently sealed up all the holes in the building, and the cats were probably two of the kittens that lived in the barn behind the store (it looks like a barn, but we use it as a warehouse). It was cold, and they had probably got into the store to keep warm, but now they were trapped. These were feral cats, so there wasn't any way of picking them up and taking them out.

We had two humane animal traps at home, because we had been doing cat rescue at the time. I asked the managers if it was okay if I set up the traps in the store to get them out, which was fine with them. It was very near Christmas, so I was going in around 9 pm at night. I set up a trap in the crawlspace, and two days later I caught one of them, and took her home to wait for her brother to be caught. I set up another trap in the deli, and I actually saw the cat in the trap eating the food, but he didn't trip it closed. I walked all the way around and snuck up on the cat, which amazingly didn't hear me. I smacked the top of the trap, thinking it would shut, but it just scared the hell out of the cat and he ran away. I didn't think I would be able to catch him with the trap after that, but by that time they were putting the meat ends and the bags of cat food away at night, so there was nothing else for them to eat. I caught the other one the next night in the crawlspace.

Now we had two feral cats in our craft room. We made an appointment for them to be spay/neutered at Delaware Humane Association, which does low cost spay neuter, as well as adoptions. We didn't name the cats, so we just called them Byler #1 and Byler #2. The store didn't pay for this, we did, but I didn't ask and I didn't expect them to pay either. We had been doing this for some time, so it seemed like the right thing to do in this case. Most of the people at work thought I was weird for doing this. Maybe not just for this, but oh well. :)

We had to keep them for a few days after the spay/neuter (they stayed right in the traps, thank you). After the few days, we brought both of them back to the store and set them free by the barn/warehouse. We had bought a 20 lb. bag of food and just dumped it behind the barn for them to eat. I did this regularly for awhile, but eventually I had to stop, as it was getting expensive. They lived for at least a year after they were born without being fed regularly, so I figured they could keep it going.

The brown kitty was Byler #1. I saw him only once after he was neutered. He was not happy to see me. The gray kitty, Byler #2, was possibly the cutest kitty Sarah and I had ever seen (I think we took pictures of them in the traps, but I cannot find them). I saw her many times after she was spayed. Most times were when I surprised her in the dumpster. I would have to throw something out when the store was not yet open, so I would open the back door and lob the item into the dumpster. Every once in awhile a frightened kitty would jump out and run back to the barn.

I saw her less and less as the years passed, I think now I maybe see her once a year. It has been said that spay/neuter lengthens a cat's life, so maybe that's why I'm still seeing her from time to time. She's still as cute as ever!

Jr. Bunk

Jr. Bunk is currently the second in command in our house. He was the first cat we found after we moved to DE. We were at a junk shop in south DE and we saw him when we were leaving. We thought he looked a lot like Bruiser, but he was in a lot worse shape. He had obviously been fighting, I suppose to get whatever food he could (there were quite a few other stray cats lurking around), and he had a flea problem. We left the junk shop and didn't discuss him for a few days, but both of us were thinking about him. I had named him in my head. We called Bruiser Bruiser Bunk sometimes, which was based on a character from Homicide: Life On The Street. So it seemed fitting that he be called Jr. Bunk (the actual character's name) on a few levels. We decided to go and get him.

We went back to the junk shop and asked the man if we could have one of the cats, and he said we could take all of them if we wanted. But we just took Bunky. I don't remember him giving us any trouble when we put him in the carrier, but he may have. We made a vet appointment for him that day, because we didn't want to bring him into the house with all those fleas. We had to kill some time, so we went to eat lunch at Burger King, and Bunk was kicking up a fuss in the back seat. We took him to the vet, and he had shots and tests and a flea bath. We took him home to our apartment, and put him in the half bath in our bedroom, again so he wouldn't mix with the other two cats until we heard from the vet.

This is when we learned about FIV, which is called feline AIDS. Neither of us had ever heard about it, and apparently it was pretty new to the vets as well, because his doctor told us that he would be dead within a year. That was 11 years ago. (My tired joke for this is that we should have gotten it in writing.) He could NOT be let out with the other cats, because he would make them sick and they would all soon be dead. We now know that this isn't the case, that some cats are immune and cats who have it can live full, healthy lives. But back then it scared us to death. We decided that we would leave him in our bedroom once he got healthier.

That also was a trial. The bathroom floor was thick with dead fleas and ticks, and he had horrfic smelling diarrhea for a week. But he did get better, so we let him into the bedroom, where he became a feline nightmare. He would attack our toes in the night, and he would jump up on the bed with a crazed look in his eyes. Eventually, Sarah couldn't take anymore and started sleeping in the extra bedroom. I stuck it out for a bit longer, but I had to join her. The worst part of this setup was: we were only planning on being in the apartment for a year or less, until we found a house. So we only unpacked what we needed and used the extra bedroom as a storage facility. So we had to make room on the floor for our mattress, and we slept like that for almost an entire year. I was counting down the days until Bunk's demise so we could have our bedroom back.

We moved into our house, and Bunky took up residence in the master bedroom (again), only this time he shared it with all of the unpacked boxes! Hah! We had a hard time keeping him in there, which was exacerbated by the fact that we would let him out periodically and keep an eye on him; if he got too close to the other cats, we put him back. It was in this era, one night at 2 am on our way to bed, that we opened the bedroom door, and there was Bunky just sitting on the floor, meowing at us. He was not trying to get out, so we suspected something was wrong. We tried to pick him up and he let out a screech, so we had to take him to the vet. At 3 in the morning on a Sunday. That was a bit pricey. It turned out that he had crystals in his bladder, which was blocking his urethra. This was caused by stress, which of course was caused by keeping him locked up.

So we let him out. Sunny either got FIV from him then, or he already had it from the brief forays that Bunk made into the house (sorry Sunny). Bruiser was sick in other ways and he never got FIV. Bunky immediately made up for being locked up for 4 years by walking everywhere that I walked, especially on the stairs, which I almost fell down twice because of that. He has calmed down a lot with that, but he still needs to be wherever we are. If we call any of the cats or the dog, Bunk will come running first. He likes to cuddle, which is fine, except he never learned to cuddle without his claws, which really hurt. And you can't really pick him up comfortably; he is extremely taut and only goes one way. If you pick him up the wrong way you get a chest full of claws. The vet actually called him a "bowling ball with fur."

Bunk is still plugging away, he's right here next to me on the floor. When we watch TV he will be on the couch, and he is so stealthy sometime that I won't realize that he is on my lap. And he has a weird sensitivity to sounds, he could be bored to tears during a thunderstorm, but a sharp intake of breath makes him jump and shred my skin. But he's a good dude.