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Thursday, May 20th, 2004
I've been working for a little while (about a week since I bought the lumber I guess) on building a new pair of gates for our driveway. The old ones were poorly designed -- two 5' gates hung from metal poles at either side of the driveway and meeting in the middle, swinging toward the back of the driveway. The problem was, they did not actually swing; the wooden gates were far too heavy for the hinges to support, so they were actually resting on the bottom corner at the center of the driveway. When you wanted to open a gate you had to either lift it up, or drag it along the asphalt -- either one is a hassle. So here's my bright idea: One 8' gate hanging from the pole on the outside of the driveway (i.e. the side away from the house). It has a caster on the side that is not on hinges; so instead of swinging it rolls open and closed. Additionally it has a drop bar to anchor it in the closed position. The pole on the inside of the driveway comes out as does the short fence from the house to the pole, and a 3' gate hangs from the fence post at the side of the house. It swings toward the front of the driveway. So the deal is, you usually keep the big gate closed, with the drop bar in the ground, and go in and out through the little gate. I finished building the big gate on Tuesday, and today I hung it on the pole. It looks pretty good, and it rolls just fine. (I may at some point need to replace the cheapo caster with something more durable though.) Ready to start work on the little gate. I will rent a jack-hammer from Home Depot to take the pole out of the ground -- this is kind of exciting as I have never used a jack-hammer before.
posted evening of May 20th, 2004: Respond
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Wednesday, May 19th, 2004
I see from Mark Kleiman's blog that my birthday falls on the same date as both his and Matt Yglesias'. Cool. Update: and it's also Kevin Drum's wedding anniversary! A busy day for bloggers.
posted morning of May 19th, 2004: Respond
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Monday, May 17th, 2004
Refried beans are a favorite dish of mine and I like to cook them now and then. I made them yesterday for my birthday party barbecue, and they came out very well. Here's how you do it: - Soak about a pound of dry pinto beans overnight, in the refrigerator. I like to buy beans from places that sell them in bins; the bagged beans from Goya are not so good. I don't know if it's relative freshness or what. When you soak the beans, be sure to use enough water; I usually cover them to about 2-3 times the height of the dry beans.
- About 2 hours before you want the beans to be ready, put them up to boil in a stock pot, partially covered. Good things to add to the water are several bay leaves, and a yellow onion cut in half (with the skin on).
- While the beans are boiling, get the seasonings ready: roast and grind about 1/4 cup of cumin seeds and a Tbsp. of anise seeds; and reconstitute some dried chilis. You do this by pouring boiling water on them, waiting about 20 minutes, and then scraping the chili paste away from the skin with a spoon. Also you should be checking the beans occasionally to see that they are at a slow boil and are not too dry -- if they are, add water and return to a boil.
- When the beans are soft, fish out the bay leaves and onion (you could probably mash the onion and return it to the pot, but I have never done this), and turn the heat up to high. The water will start boiling away -- keep stirring and scraping the bottom of the pot, and you will wind up with a sort of pasty consistency.
- Empty the pot into a bowl; heat up about 3-4 Tbsp. oil (canola or lard) in the bottom of the pot and fry 5 or 6 chopped yellow onions and about half a head of garlic, with the cumin and anise and chili paste. After about 5 minutes add the beans back in and lower the heat down to a simmer.
- You're basically good to go now -- my rule of thumb is that the longer this mixture simmers the better (within reason), but the downside is you need to pay some attention to it so it does not dry out or burn to the bottom of the pot. I usually end up simmering it for 15 minutes or so.
posted evening of May 17th, 2004: Respond
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Sunday, May 16th, 2004
Now the sun is shining and the temperature outside is absolutely perfect. Happy birthday!
posted afternoon of May 16th, 2004: Respond
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Weather.com is not predicting thunderstorms any longer. Things may work out yet!
posted morning of May 16th, 2004: Respond
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Saturday, May 15th, 2004
Tomorrow will be the date of my 34th birthday party. (The birthday itself falls on a Tuesday this year, not a good day for a party.) All today we were saying boy, the weather is perfect, I hope it holds up for tomorrow! But, right now (11 pm) there is an utter downpour and electrical storm; and weather.com is predicting that that situation will hold through tomorrow morning and then give way to "scattered thunderstorms" for the rest of the day. So, I reckon I will be hosting a dramatically smaller party than I had planned...
posted evening of May 15th, 2004: Respond
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Thursday, May 13th, 2004
Heart of Darkness -- I was wondering yesterday what was with Marlowe's journey by foot to the Central Station -- the introduction explains that the Central Station was in Kinshasa, at Stanley Falls, and reproduces a map of the overland route (a trek which Conrad made in 1890). Clearly the falls would be an obstacle to shipping so the steamer had to stop there; not quite clear to me why another boat could not run from there to the coast.
posted evening of May 13th, 2004: Respond
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I started reading the introduction to The Heart of Darkness this morning, thinking that will get me into the mood of the story before I restart it. The introduction is written by Robert Hampson (of whom a quick Google search reveals little besides that he edits books by Conrad and writes books about Conrad) and is quite concise and well done -- I say this as someone who generally has trouble reading literary criticism. I am recognizing and identifying with points he makes, nodding in agreement, I think this background will really help my reading of the book itself. I was especially interested in his statement that the narrative structure (Kurtz's story told by Marlowe, told by the narrator) serves to distance the book from actual Africa (which continent is never named within the text) and make it more about European notions/archtypes of Africa. This rings a bell vis-a-vis the imagery I was getting while reading the first chapter, which was not all of the events in the story, more like a colloage of plot elements with stuff from outside the book.
posted morning of May 13th, 2004: Respond
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The front page of today's NY Post trumpets,  -- to which I can only say, oy.
posted morning of May 13th, 2004: Respond
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Wednesday, May 12th, 2004
I was playing "You Can't Always Get What You Want" tonight and having a lot of fun with it. The key seems to be just to find a groove and get into it -- there are (practically) only 2 chords in the whole song so in order to keep it from getting boring, you need to play it with a lot of energy. My version didn't sound much like the Stones but I think it sounded all right.
posted evening of May 12th, 2004: Respond
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