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Monthly Archives: February 2009

The local sweet potatoes

I can’t rave enough about the local sweet potatoes. They’re cheap, they’re good, and they’re fine winter fare, “Rare ballast for an empty belly,” as Sam Gamgee said. They’re so flavorful that I don’t even bother to season them, not even salt. They’re highly compatible, though, with toasted sesame oil, a compatibility the exploitation of […]

Sauerkraut update

When I first tasted my homemade sauerkraut, which was put up in October, there were two problems. The first was that the sauerkraut wasn’t quite sour enough. The second was that it was too tender and lacked crunch. Now that the sauerkraut has fermented longer and I’ve worked down into the crock, away from sauerkraut […]

It's official: Kindle 2

Amazon.com Amazon did indeed make the announcement today about the new Kindle. Unfortunately, they did not cut the price. I believe that, once electronic readers reach critical mass, we’ll have a whole new era of easy self-publishing and open-source literature.

This spooky chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics makes it pretty clear that this recession is far worse than anything we’ve seen in a long time. Job loss is in free fall, dramatically worse than the 1990 and 2001 recessions. It’s not to late to plan your victory garden.

House update

The empty breaker panel, waiting for wires and breakers Work on the inside of the house has started, though the kind of work that’s happening now doesn’t make great photos. The electrician has started. The plumber and the heating and air conditioning people should start any day. The next stage is all about putting pipes […]

Kindle 2.0 on the way?

An older Kindle 1.0 (Amazon.com) Rumors of an updated model of the Kindle, which everyone has been calling Kindle 2.0, have been kicking around for months. Amazon ran out of Kindles before the holidays. Now a blogger at the Los Angeles Times is reporting that Amazon has scheduled a press event in New York for […]

While we're on the subject…

Sean Jackson: Superman visits Trinity Church Wall Street (Youtube) Don’t worry … this is not going to turn into an organ blog. It’s just that I’ve been thinking a lot about organ installations because I’m in the middle of making tricky decisions about where the wiring and speakers will go for the electronic organ in […]

Giving amateurs a chance

Ron Reseigh (who is not an amateur) at the Berkeley Wurlitzer I’ve been thinking all day about amateur musicians and things people (and communities) can do to encourage amateur musicianship. When I was in San Francisco, for a while I was member of the Northern California Theater Organ Society, which owns and maintains the large […]

Homemade music

Just now on Facebook, there is a thing going around in which people are supposed to write 25 random things about themselves. An old friend of mine did this, and one of the random things about him is that he used to play an instrument, but because of an abusive band director and snobbish bandmates, […]

I call, she comes. What a concept!

Lily reposes. Digital effects applied in Gimp photo editor. I have raised several dogs from puppyhood, and so I have pretty well-developed theories about how to raise puppies. Lily, who is now about nine months old, was about eight weeks old when she came to me. I had to play kitten-raising by ear. Dogs, of […]