foran_object

Made it to work today without stopping!

I am happy to say that I was able to drive into work this morning, without having to bring my car to a complete stop. Not even once. The major thing that allowed this to happen is the fact that most of my drive is on Highway 416, and I only have a few stop signs, which I rolled of course, and a few traffic lights, all of which were either green, or I was able to slow down and coast until they turned green. I had a bit of a tough one at the end, making the left from Eagleson onto Michael Coupland; I had to slow down to around 5 Km/h, but still made it. This is actually the second time in the 21 months we've been living at our house that I've been able to do this. What made it extra unusual this time was that they've installed two new traffic lights recently.

Woohoo!

Banana Bread:

My wife has requested that the following recipe be posted. Almost everybody I know who has a blog has been posting recipes, and I think she feels that foran_object is culinary inadequate. I can offer, however, that I enjoyed several pieces before it even left the cooling rack.

Monkey Mel's Gâteau garni au chocolat et aux bananes 350 F for 45- 50 min

1 cup softened butter/tasse de beurre ramoli
2 cups granulated sugar/tasses du sucre granulé
2 beaten eggs/ oeufs battus
1 tsp vanilla extract/c.thé de vanille
2 1/2 cups ripened mashed bananas( approx 5)/de bannanes mûres (environ 5 bananes) 3cups flour/ tasses farine 2tsp baking soda/cà thè de bicarbonate de sodium 2tsp baking powder/cà thé pardre à pâte 1cup sour cream/tasse créme sûre

Place half the batter in the greased pan and then place half of the following ingredients over the batter. Place the remaining chips, brown sugar and cinnamon over the top of the banana bread.

1/2 c brown sugar/cassonard bein tassé
1 pkg chocolate chips paquet de 300gr. chocalat un-sucré Baker's
1 tsp cinnamon/cà thé cannelle

* I lowered the sugar to 1 and a half cups and substituted 1 cup of whole wheat flour. Next time I'll take it down to 1 cup sugar and 1 1/2c whole wheat flour.

Garden pics:

Update on seed germination: Week 3

Redbud Trees:


Of the four Redbud seeds, one has germinated so far. I checked the remaining seeds, one had decomposed and was covered in green fungus, mold, or some similar such thing. The seed coats in the remaining two have decomposed, revealing fresh white embryo beneath. My guess is that they are alive, but still dormant. The seed that did germinate is now ~2" tall, with two cotyledons, and two true leaves. I am now using a bottle over the top of the plant to keep the environment moist. I am watering it every few days using a spray misting bottle, which has a weak solution of seedling fertilizer. I am using either reverse osmosis or clean rain water.








Rhododendrons:

Many of the tiny rhodo seeds have germinated, and are now about 2 mm high. I removed the plastic wrap, and am now using two pieces of glass to cover the container. I am removing for short periods of time, once or twice a day, to examine the seedlings and exchange the air. I'm lightly misting the seeds with with my rain water and seedling fertilizer mix.

Just for Serdic...



view from our second story bathroom in winter

Thursday August 12, 2006

As I write this, I’m sitting in a rusty old chair, tucked away under an escalator in an around the corner away of the underground walkway that connects Concourse B and C in a terminal at Chicago O’Hare airport. Apparently, there has been an attempted terrorist attack on planes at London Heathrow. My plane to Ottawa is massively delayed and every time I check departures, it gets worse. Even though I left California first thing this morning, I’ll be lucky to get home by tomorrow morning.

The Transportation Security Agency (I think) has put the airport on orange alert. I don’t know what this means exactly. What I do know however is that there are signs and continuous announcements indicating that people cannot bring liquids, gels, pastes, or anything or that sort on planes. There are some exceptions, insulin being one of them. The ridiculous thing about this is, they are not checking for these things before you get on the plane. There’s nothing stopping people. This isn’t security, it’s a plan to inconvenience and hassle the honest.

I was pretty much ready to go postal an hour ago, but now that I’m tucked away in the corner, away from the crowds, I’m starting to calm down.

Sunday August 6, 2006

On Sunday I made my journey to San Jose. Man, I hate hotels. Lifeless, boring, lonely places without many of the conveniences of hom, and they make me homesick, and they have bad art. I hate hotels almost as much as I hate airports. Don’t even get me started on airports.

Jen, the taxi that pulled into departures before us, the one with the bunji-corded trunk, billowing with oversize luggage; there were two middle aged women in it. They were on the same plane as me, to Chicago. The plane boarded late, and took off even later. I can’t remember the reason, I’m just glad I had 2 ½ hours stopover, so I didn’t miss my connection. The two ladies boarded pretty early, and held up people in the aisle.

The Jerks in the seat in front reclined their seats all the way, impeding my legs, and not allowing me to use my laptop well. I rested it, angled down, touchpad end up, resting 4” inches up on my ever increasing huge gut.

Frank Zappa provided the music for the ride. “Hot Rats”, isn’t my favourite Zappa, but it drowns out the stupid crying kid, the people next to me talking about tornadoes, and the pilot and fight staff talking on the intercrom. Crap, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the spiel. Amost exactly the same every time. Drive’s me nuts I swear.

Weird. I’m starting to write like Holden Caulfield.

Buddy in front of me played Solitaire on his huge laptop. Damn boring game if you ask me. His wife sipped her acquisition from the in-flight beverage service, and read the in-flight magazine. Good times, glad I had got ‘the curious incident of the dog in the night time.’

While I’m not usually “lovin’” McDonald’s, I am lovin’ this book readin’ thing I’m into. The last few years have seen me read about only 3-4 novels. I’ve read countless computer books, woodworking books, gardening books, etc, but never cover to cover, and usually not in linear order. Initial thing of beauty, about the novel, was that it kept my attention, and passed the time on the way home from Chicago a few weeks back—but the best thing, I was allowed to continue reading while the plane decended, landed and taxied. Damn if they’ll let you do that with a laptop or even music player.

Saturday August 5, 2006

I swear somebody upstairs doesn’t want me riding my bicycle. I few weeks ago, I get some new gear for my bike. Eager to try it out, I go for a ride, and…flat tire. Over a week goes by before I can get a new one and get it installed. Finally on Saturday I journey to into town and it feels good. New seat cover is definitely more comfortable. Gloves and shorts help too. I felt so good I hit the trails in Ferguson Forest. After coming out I’m sweaty and tired. Trip to the store for beverage. Come out…flat tire. Damn good thing I brought Jen’s cell phone, it would have taken hours to walk home. I think I’ll start carrying a spare tube and pump again.

Also, we went looking for a bike for Jen. I’m picky, and there’s no luck. Most promising ride looks to be the Norco somethin’ or other from the small shop in town.

Thursday August 3, 2006

Thursday turned out to be rather interesting at work. The return to support work didn’t excite me much a first—it certainly didn’t work out well for me last time. Skills learned since my earlier days have proved beneficial however. But not just that, it’s added confidence and experience too. I now have no fear of jumping into the source code to figure out something; at least the simpler apps anyway.

Wednesday August 2, 2006

Wednesday proved to be another inconsequential day at work. This can have its merits, but not today. I felt lousy and tired. Tired from nothing. Tired of nothing.

After pulling away from the gas station, I decided to throttle on the gas. A little adrenilin to fix my woes. Even at 138,000 KM, the motor still sounds sweet, with all the power it had when new. I punch the gas, and the car pulls hard as I run through the gears on the on ramp. My car has probably been the most faithful material object I have known. It has been, for me, many things, pickup truck, off-road vehicle, and tonight, as it has been before, racing car.

Third gear is my favorite.

Feel like crap. Ate too much sugar with lunch and had high blood sugar. My eating habits, and, to a lessor extent, exercise habits have been abisimal for months and I feel like I'm paying a price. Even knowing this however, I can't seem to help myself.

To add to my cloud of depression is the fact that I have so many things in my life that have been neglected, and that I can't seem to find the energy to catch up on. Case in point would be my tax return. For the last few months I blamed it on the magnitude of my business travel. In the last little while however, I've hardly travelled at all.

Tonight's mission: keep my eating and blood sugar under control, and get a good night's sleep