I've mentioned this before and stand confident in the fact this site satisfies my desire to document stuff, even in the absence of an audience. All my notebooks are gathering dust and gradually being replaced by this dynamic medium. However, catching the eye of an occassional visitor, sometimes from far away, is an added benefit I never anticipated.

I received a flattering correspondence yesterday from Petra, an amazing baker in Germany. The site's in German, but the photos of the breads speak for themselves. They are amazing. My favorite so far (I'm far from being finished drooling over this site): the fougasse and the Portugese bread. I haven't made either of these, but might give them a try now. Thanks for visiting Petra!

Survival. How fast good health and weather can change. Monday at Midnight, Frankie got a fever. Suze has an ear infection and Trish and I play tag-team around the clock to meet work demands. Today started warily at 4.

I used to wonder why, when we had friends with kids over and their kids would run around crazy and their parents just stood there with glazed-over looks and didn't do anything, why they didn't do anything. I now know. They were actually practicing the art of sleeping with their eyes open.

And. . .what a trip to the movies.

Wow. today I actually found it handy to have recorded my experience smoking 21 pounds of pork. Good luck Larry.

DavesBeer . . . helping people eat pulled pork, since 2003.

Ouch. We did a bit too much today. Frankie woke at 6:30 am sharp. Off to breakfast, a quick trip to Wal-Mart and then to the daycare center. They are building a new playground and we signed up to assist with the demolition. A few guys, a backhoe and several thousand pounds of debris to move. Aside from a few abrasions and a shredded shirt, it went swimmingly.

However, the trick of survival with an infant is to save a bit. To resist doing, even when you can. To save it for that final stretch of the day. We violated that rule. We went busily from dawn to dusk. We're hoping the kid sleeps in tomorrow. Tomorrow . . . we'll remember the rule.

Hey, it's take your meandering confused beings to clutter up the cafeteria kids to work day. What a nice concept. You can go home now.

A while back, I was grumbling about the hurdles placed for those who desire to teach. ETS is a demonic testing agency that has a monopoly on testing individuals to insure they are "certified" to teach. Teachers in training are required to take 3 exams. The first exam, the PRAXIS I, is a 3 part general knowledge exam. It is an exam required to gain entry in a program called Transition to Teaching, an alternative certification program for people who desire to teach special kids. I passed. I am horrible at taking standardized exams, so this is a big deal for me. I did wicked good as a matter of fact. Sometime in August is the final interview for the program. I'm one step closer.

This site turns 1 year old in a couple days. Although it's not been popular enough to get me an offer from ConAgra or Pampers, at least we've been noticed by the free-living marine flatworm, C. convoluta. That's rewarding enough, I guess.

Thanks to all who've visited!

I'm always fascinated at someone who shines at what they do. I witnessed such an individual this morning. At the tire shop. This morning, after driving around for several days with a screw in my spiffy new $150 tire, I stopped to get it fixed. The guy running the desk this morning talked a lot and was a fanatic about tires. I have been known to obsess over my tire pressure and was interested in what he had to say. He went from topic to topic with speed and clarity that squashed any professor in my experience. I got a brief dissertation on all season vs. performance tires, an extended lecture and demo of various alignment problems and their manifestations on tire wear and how tires wear in a front vs. rear-wheel drive vehicle to name just a few. This guy was amazing. I learned more by 10 am this morning than I've learned this year at work.

And, Holy War, indeed.

Comments please. I've contemplated comments forever (at least a year) on this site. Not for Frankie's pics; I know who looks at those and I enjoy hearing their comments by phone or email. But the Weber_cam has become a great deal of fun for me. I consider it my lab notebook for the kitchen and post a lot of small projects there, successful or flop. Failures in the kitchen are frustrating but more important than the victories. Documentation and sharing are crucial to growth in this endeavor, so I implemented comments (thanks for nudge Katherine). I'm not pimping my baked goods for some cheap flattery, I'm interested in criticism. It's about the bread.

Tonight, Frankie had pastina (hmmm, did someone suggest that one earlier?), liberally coated with butter and olive oil and a few cooked carrots thrown in. She also had yogurt, a cracker, a cookie and a very busy day. Me? I had a healthy serving of Tylenol cold and flu medicine and tried not to ache.

At Nona and Grampa's, she's taking a few steps. Maybe walking by the weekend.

Topix is awesome! Number of news sources is growing daily and unlike Drudge, seems to be less obsessed with Janet Jackson's pathetic attempt at publicity and can be viewed by subject or zip code. There's even a Food Science subsection (Business -> Industries -> Food Science).

Take home lesson, eat meat not green onions.

At Cup 'O Joe today, the local coffee shop, I couldn't get over the number of people who were there at 11:44 just lounging around. Not students either. I had to suppress the urge to take a survey of what the hell these people did for a living that allowed them to be lounging about in a coffee shop in the middle of the day on a Tuesday afternoon. I can't figure it out.

Frankie needed to be sent home today from daycare. Bummer. I noticed she was a funny shade of green. That's not why she was sent home, she just finished painting Easter Eggs. Her teachers said she was really enthused.

PRAXIS scores anyday now.

Ahhh, Columbus in early spring. A nice walk, breakfast with our playgroup (thanks Gary and Becky for the killer pancakes!) and a quick trip to the emergeny room for Trish. Frankie, with her sharp fingernails, denuded about 1/8 of Trish's cornea. Stripped away about 5 layers of cells putting Trish into agonizing pain. She should be 75% healed in 24 hours. I'm taking care of the kid while she heals - and protecting my eyes.

How did ancient civilizations survive without Google? I just typed in "laser bologna cheese cut" (actually it was "laser cold cheese cut" but I just had a wicked craving for bolony) and found this article on the use of lasers to cut cheese without cooking it. They weren't able to cut any deeper than 10 mm but hey, shredded parmesan is pretty small. I think they short changed themselves on the utility of this nifty method.