Hot, fresh waffles on the road

I'm in Arizona, and the hotel I'm staying at offers one item that I've never seen before in a hotel breakfast. A waffle-maker. (And cups of waffle batter.) Pour in the batter, rotate the waffle iron to start the built-in timer (the other nifty feature is the waffle iron rotates), and 2 minutes later you have a hot, fresh waffle.

It was a tasty waffle.

According to reliable sources, at least one other hotel in the area has the same implement of fresh waffleness.

Illegal Sea Food

There's a place near my hotel that reads "Legal Sea Food" on the awning. I'm not sure if it's a store or a restaurant or something else.

Does this mean there is illegal sea food about?

I've only been in Baltimore a short time, but I haven't seen any shady characters in trench coats whispering "Hey budy, want some prawns?"

Saturday muffin blogging

Been a while since I've posted any pictures of breakfast foods. Time to get back to my blogging roots and rectify this great omission. This breakfast food picture even comes with a boring, pointless story.

Last week I had a hankering for muffins. Being somewhat competent in the kitchen, I set about on a quest to make some. I consulted my wife's "Joy of Cooking" tome for proper muffin making technique. The key is to keep the wet and dry ingredients separate as long as possible, and mix them just enough to get them sufficiently mixed. To the consternation of assorted bystanders, I actually *measured* most of the ingredients (okay, so I'm embellishing the story a bit - the only bystander was the cat, and he wasn't all that concerned.)

The pictured pineapple-coconut muffin is from my third batch (for the record, the first batch was blueberry, and the second batch was raspberry).

The recipe called for 4 teaspoons of baking powder. After reading the baking powder label, this seemed like a lot of sodium, so I reduced it to 2 teaspoons. The muffins still appeared to rise okay, and were still tasty.

Naming your new variables

There are these lists around of popular baby names for a given year. (No links, do your own Google search). I wonder what such a list would look like if someone did the same tabulation for variable names in programs? How would it change over the years? ("i" and "j" would probably be perennial favorites, with "idx","indx",and "index" not far behind)
Seeing the lists broken down by "ethnicity" (ie, programming language) would be interesting as well.

On a related note, expectant parents have books of baby names at their disposal for aid in choosing a name. I wonder if programmers could use such a resource to assist in naming their variables (and functions and namespaces, etc)?
(Actually, a thesaurus is handy for that purpose. (Ugh, I just answered my own rhetorical question))

Questions from the Edge

The Edge asks a big question annually. This year, it is: What is your dangerous idea? They have a pile of responses from scientists and other notable people. Many of them have to do with brain and biology, others have to do with religion and science, and there are sundry other topics discussed Give it a read (You'll have to scroll down a ways past all the blurbs to get the actual responses on the first page).

Recasting Harry Potter

Raymond Chen's picks for a humorous (perhaps nightmarish) recasting of Harray Potter. Mr. T as Hagrid is brilliant!

Coincidence in the library?

While browsing at the library this evening, I noticed the books on codes and cryptography were right next to the books on Word (like "Word 2000 for Dummies").
Coincidence?

Daylight Savings too commercial

Daylight savings time has lost its way. It's become a big, commercialized, impersonal event. We get so busy with all the hoopla and fanfare, we rush around like mad and never stop to consider the true meaning of the event anymore. It used to be that stores put up their displays at the proper season, but now - now it's barely past Labor Day and every store is decked out in daylight savings time dioramas.

That's just one complaint, and a surface complaint at that. No, the real issue goes deeper. I feel it my heart. I have become distracted. Some years, I think I just want to throw off all the endless festivities that purport to celebrate, but somehow, seem to drain the season of all meaning. One year I'll actually do it - no parties, no festivals, no made-for-TV movies, none of the accoutrements that we consider indispensible - just a single, solitary observance focused on the true meaning of daylight savings time.

In the final analysis, it's not daylight savings time that has lost its way. It is we who have lost our bearings. But it doesn't have to be that way. Will you join me in rediscovering the joyful simplicity that is the end of daylight savings time?

Unnatural fashion chimeras

Whilst listening to 80's music tonight, I suddenly had a vision of stonewashed baggy jeans, with rips in the knees. (Perhaps worn by a rapper with Big Hair (TM)?)

On a similar note, would it even be possible to tight roll baggy pants?

And the cultural collision images kept coming - two guys collide, their clothes get mixed up - "Hey, you got your hip hop in my disco." Second guy - "Hey, you got your disco in my hip hop".

Panoramic pictures of Homer lake

It was warm and sunny the Friday before last, and we took advantage of the occasion for a walk at Homer Lake. I took some panoramic pictures.

I didn't adjust the color and brightness on some of the pictures before combining them into one image, and the sky looks strange in places.

Click on the pictures to get larger versions (at Flickr).

This Old Shed

My mom came down to visit this past weekend, and she wanted to make improvements while she was here. This time the target was the shed/barn structure that had some holes in the roof, needed some boards replaced, and needed a coat of paint.

Before:

After:

Thanks, Mom!

(Lest there be any confusion, my mom did not do the roofing. I did that part)

Belgian Waffles

It's high time I started digging out some food related pictures from the trip to Europe this summer. The first pictures are of genuine Belgian waffles. This might also appear as an attempt to be true to the title of this blog, but it is not so - these waffles are an afternoon snack, not a breakfast delight.

The first ones we tried - one had caramel and one had strawberries.

And this beauty was slathered in chocolate

Panoramic vistas, take 1

The idea of stitching multiple photos together to make a panoramic view has always appealed to me. Attempts to join by hand in the Gimp where unsuccessful, though. Now, with hugin, I can do this on Linux quite easily.

Here's my first attempt, joining two pictures I took while skiing in Colorado this spring.

Wisconsin in the mist

A few weeks ago, I was visiting my parents on their farm in northern Wisconsin. One morning I got up early (yeah, my family was shocked too), and took pictures around the farm with fog in the background.

Compositions I'd like to hear

Continuing on theme of last post, here a few compositions I would like to hear. The first is "Sonata for Three Piccolos, One Tuba and Niagara Falls".

Generally, the instruments used to make music are under the control of the musician, and the better the musician, the more control they have over their instrument. Niagara Falls adds an uncontrolled, unrepeatable aspect to the piece. (Of course, recording it would restore some control and repeatability)

Classical music is quite the collaborative enterprise, with the composer, conductor and musicians all bringing their separate talents to collectively achieve a great social good - curbing teen loitering in 7-Elevens

Performing on the road would be challenging. The smaller part of Niagara Falls (American and Bridal Veil Falls) passes 150,000 gallons per second. This would take about 1800 tanker trucks to transport each minute of the composition. Art on a scale that would make Christo jealous.

The other piece I'd like to hear is "Overture for 13 Trained Squirrels on Violin and One Muskrat with Cymbals."

Overtures involving Jacob's Ladder?

The 1812 Overture is memorable in part because the score calls for real cannon fire.

There are other compositions that call for unusual instruments, but are there other compositions that call for slightly dangerous implements, like Jacob's ladders (high voltage electricity) or thundering herds of water buffalo?

Mobile Tomato Plants

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you put a tomato plant on a motorized wheeled platform (with the requisite amount of dirt) and let the plant drive?

The hard part would be connecting the plant so it could correctly signal the platform to move in useful ways. I suppose some sort of chemical concentration sensors, or maybe even electrical conductivity would work.

For some inexplicable reason, I am greatly amused by the image of a herd of tomato plants driving around the yard on wheeled platforms.

The patient person would embark on a selective breeding program to allow the plants to drive the platforms into the sun, out of the wind, to get a drink of water, etc.

Episode III: Backstroke of the West

Imagine, for a moment, Star Wars Episode III translated into Chinese and then back into English subtitles.


Okay, stop imagining and view the screenshots.
Including such memorable lines as "Our dichotomy opens the combat" and "I was just made by the Presbyterian Church"

Home Sweet Home

After some time in Belgium, in the touristy city of Brugge (it was a fun place to visit), and an afternoon in Luxemborg, we made it back home just fine.

It was good to see Europe, and it's good to be home.

I plan to look through the 1200+ pictures I took and arrange some of them on a webpage.

Swiss travel learnings

More things learned from traveling in Switzerland.

1. When going on a two day hike, and there is only one place to stay the first night, call ahead to make sure they are open and will let you stay.
2. When mailing luggage to yourself in another town, and they say it will take two days, don't forget to account for weekends.

We were going to go on a two day hike from Gsteig to Les Mosses. And we wanted to send one piece of luggage ahead so we wouldn't have to hike with it. The guidebooks all said we could do this at Swiss train stations. However, we tried this from a small station in Les Diablerets, and the attendent didn't speak English, and didn't understand what we wanted to do.

We then went to the tourist information office, where the woman there called the train station and talked for a while, and finally the train station attendent understood. However, the woman there also suggested the post office was cheaper. So we went to the Post, and it was indeed cheaper. We also sent it second class, since that would take two days, and we planned to spend three days in Les Mosses - plenty of time for it to arrive. It was Thursday

We take the bus from Les Diablerets to Gsteig and begin our hike. Lots of climbing. I suspect we climbed more altitude than exists in Illinois. Later in the day, we get to the hotel/restaurant we expect to stay at.

It is quite empty, and the waiter seems suprised to see us. He tells us we cannot stay because we did not call ahead. He goes inside (presumably to talk to a manager), comes back out, and tells us the same thing. He also tells us we could stay if we are a group of 10 people or more, and suggests that a local barn might have room.

We try the barn/house, but it is a summer barn with only a single room for people, and of course they have no room. So we decide to press on with the second day of the hike (which is supposed to be easier than the first day, and fortunately is easier).

We got additional water from a farm we passed (we had consumed all ours), and made it to Les Mosses about ten pm. We are able to find a place to stay, just before they close - it never felt so good to find a room.

We slept late the next morning and went to the Post when it was open in the afternoon. The bag had not come (given it was only one day later, so we didn't really expect it), but the lady there told us the mail didn't come on Saturday, even though the post office was open. D'oh! So the earliest we could get the bag was Monday morning, and we had reservations elsewhere Monday night, and had planned on leaving on Sunday.

To make a long story slightly shorter, we stayed an extra day, and the bag did come on Monday morning, and we made it to Gimmelwald just fine on Monday afternoon. The weather was also very nice on Sunday, and we had a nice hike.