I wanted to make a cicada salad, but I couldn’t find enough bugs to be ingredients. So instead, my contribution to today’s office salad potluck was a candy salad. It is humbly described in the recipe as “a miracle in a bowl”. You might also call it “Instant Tummyache”.
h/t to Buzzfeed for the recipe.
The ingredients
The miracle
I will be the first to admit that I frequently demonstrate symptoms of OCD. It’s not crippling, or anything weird, but I frequently like to count and categorize things. In some cases it can be useful, for example it has added to my success and enjoyment of constructing my family tree. Other times, it serves no purpose at all other than to satisfy my own curiousity. That was the case when I spent a day counting and categorizing my t-shirts, just so I could understand the big picture of my t-shirt collection. Or when I took a photo of myself (almost) everyday for a year in order to make a short movie..
I also love technology and gadgets. And in the age of the iPhone, I’m a fan of many apps that allow me to check-into locations, track my runs, sort my music, and find my friends.
For the last two years, one app in particular has especially caught my imagination, bringing my love of tracking the mundaneness of daily life crashing into my love of gadgets, with another of my loves, beer. That app is called Untappd, and it’s a must have for any curious beer lover with a smart phone. For me, using Untappd has greatly enhanced my appreciation of beer. It has driven me to explore a broader variety of styles, visit breweries, bars and other places to imbibe, seek out new ‘distinct beers’ that I’ve never had before (at least since I started tracking them), to enjoy all of that socially with other beer loving friends on Untappd. Sometimes this quest for unique beers can be daunting. My wife rolls her eyes at me at every restaurant visit, as I quickly compare their beer offerings with my history on Untappd, looking for something new. And she has spent countless extra hours waiting for me as I peruse the beer section of the grocery store, like an indecisive kid at a candy counter. Once, when I brought home a six-pack of some very sub-par beer from the store, she asked, “I thought you loved good beer, why would you buy that?”. And she again rolled eyes as I explained that I needed to drink bad beer in order to be able to appreciate good beer, and besides, it was one that I had yet to check into on Untappd.
When Untapped added the ability to post photos with your beer check-ins, my worlds collided again. I’m well known for being my own favorite photo subject, and what better to join me in a picture than the beer I’m currently drinking and checking in? And having recently collected 500 such beer self-portraits, the occasion called for another movie starring me, straightforwardly titled 500 Beers.
All this beer drinking has also led me to revisit the hobby of home-brewing that I dabbled in for a few years in the mid-90s. The enjoyment of sharing your own home brew with friends is better still when it can be shared via Untappd. So get to know me, and if I have any to spare I will happy share with you a truly unique beer check-in courtesy of Casey’s Brews.
Walk Hard 4.5 – 12.7 miles from Cash Hollow Road to Hog Camp Gap at EveryTrail
EveryTrail – Find the best Hiking in Virginia
I entered the 80s as a high school freshman. I exited them a married homeowner awaiting the birth of my first child. In between came those formative years of education; high school, college, and a trip to Europe where I met the wonderful woman that I married. It’s safe to say it was a formative decade for me. So when I saw that National Geographic had a six-part program called, The 80s: The Decade that Made Us coming up, I was quick to turn to my iPad and add it to my DVR schedule. My interest only grew when I learned the program was based on a book written by a friend and former (90s) intern of mine from days in the US Senate, David Sirota. Hurry now and buy your copy here like I did…Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now–Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything
Thinking about ‘decades’, it can be tricky. To me, the 80s feel like they just happened. They are a very recent part of my personal history. My three kids were all born in the 90s. The 80s are to them, what the 50s are to me. Weird. My kids aren’t as old as me. I expect my parents have an even thinner connection to the 20s.
So yeah, the 80s, I lived them. And I’m enjoying the flashback from the show, and looking forward to reading David’s book. I bought it online tonight and faced a dilemma. The book’s available for $14.99 as an iPad edition, cheaper than a print version. But I’m old school enough to hope someday I might get David to sign my copy, and that can get messy on an iPad. I’m buying the hardcover.
Warm weather brings tourists and cherry blossoms out. I pedaled into the mix to mingle, and paused to check out the Washington Monument, under growing scaffolding for repair to earthquake damage.
So I was up until almost 3 am this morning, migrating this blog from Posterous to a self-hosted WordPress setup. It went pretty smoothly, but I have a lot of housekeeping to do, categorizing 500+ posts dating back to 1998, fixing the random broken link or image, and so on. But this morning I’m trying out the WordPress iPhone app, and so, this blog from the bus!
Late in 2011, my brother showed me a cool iPhone app called Everyday. It’s a tool for creating time lapse movies from a collection of photos of the sort that you’ve probably seen online, like this one by one of the app’s developer’s Noah Kalina, or this one by the mysterious ClickFlashWhirr (who is much better looking and better able to stay still than me), this great one of a Pacific Crest Trail hiker, and this one of a hike and growing beard in China.
Anyway, so the app makes it easy, and I enjoy movies of this sort, so I thought I’d have a go at making my own. I made it until mid-February before I missed a day. It was about 1:00 am in the morning and I realized I missed my shot. From that point forward I took a more relaxed approach, trying to remember to get my photo every day, but not worrying too much if I missed one or two here and ther. In the end I captured 292 photos over 367 days (2012 was a Leap Year! And I included New Year’s Day 2013 to end the movie).
Beginning in October, I decided to let my beard grow through the end of the year. My beard had many motivations; partly a hiking beard, an Election mojo beard, some reason you’re not supposed to shave in November, an experiment to see what was left on top of my head after almost two years of wearing a close shave, and an opportunity to be Santa. My wife suffered horribly during these three months as my face became her nightmare. I had promised all along that it would be gone by New Year’s, but I never said it would go all at once. Trimming it bit by bit at the end of the year was one of the funnest parts of this effort.
It’s a lot to see, cramming 366 days into 30 seconds, and there is much there you can easliy miss. The individual photos are all posted in this Flickr set if you’re interested in a closer look at any of them.
My son Will is a college sophomore, and while away at school he accepted an offer from my wife and I to help clean out his room which was half full of empty gatorade bottles, old college mail, long neglected toys, and returned homework. The upside for Will is our plan is to buy him a larger bed, yet we have an alterior motive (two words: guest room).
Today while sorting papers, my wife found the below gem from a class that Will does not recall. The obvious assignment Will was faced with, was to write some poetry in various styles. Reading them brought me tears of laughter and pride, and with Will’s permission, I offer them here for your own poetic pleasure. So, no offense intended to poets or poetry lovers, I offer Will’s homework assignment:
Part 2: My Own Wonderful Words
I Can’t Write Poetry
Poetry is pretty black and white
You can either do it or you can’t.
I’m pretty sure I’m one of those who can’t.
Poetry is garbage; it’s not even tight.
I hate poetry really bad
So I’m gonna go cry to my dad.
Poetry Kills
One time, I got hit by a train.
The impact caused me severe pain.
I’m pretty sure my leg fell off
And that my lung collapsed, so I coughed.
But I blacked out, I don’t remember.
I’m not sure if I was dismembered.
And when I came to,
I realized I couldn’t move.
There, all messed up on pain pills
I realized, poetry kills.
I Hate Poetry
Cows say, “Moo!”
Pigs say, “Oink!”
Dogs say, “Bark!”
I say, “I hate poetry!”
Poetry Isn’t Fun
Today, I find myself writing a poem
And it has put me in the worst mood ever.
Will I ever need poetry in life? No, never.
So why are we wasting this paper?
Poetry makes me want to kick a puppy
And also to set fire to a forest
The whole poetry system I protest.
I think poetry is more useless then a guppy.
I think the clear purpose of poetry
Is to make kids feel terrible.
And it’s working, I fell like fresh poultry
But another could be to make kids cry
And if that were the true reason for poetry
Then it’s working, I want to die.
Poetry is Diseased
One day, I was writing a poem
And then my mouth started to foam.
I realized that I have rabies
And I had a desire to eat babies.
I went to the nearest hospital
When I found I doctor with a monocle.
He was a very old man
Who told me his name was Dan.
He told me my ailment was caused
By a common virus found in poetry.
Poetry is Pointless
Free verse poetry is kind of pointless.
It has no rhyme, rhythm, or purpose.
So it’s pretty much some random words
Thrown together, like this project.
Free verse poets and I have some common ground
We both have no idea how to write real poetry.
But at least I don’t waste my time.
Someone needs to tell them soon
That poetry is a waste, get a real job.
