Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Terry Karney's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Tuesday, April 10th, 2012
10:55 am	Shit happens This has not been a great Easter. I have a cold, but that's not it. I'm weeping, off an on, as I write this and chat with people, because someone I love is dying. Across the country from me. On his terms, insomuch as he (or we) get to have terms. He's been dying for years. We all knew it. Terminal diabetes. Dialysis four times a week. Amputations that didn't help. So he went to the hospital and told them to hook him up to morphine, and cut the dialysis to twice a week and there you go. It's basically what my grandfather did. He told his wife he wasn't going back to dialysis again. His funeral was two weeks later. I'm feeling selfish. I wanted more time. I wanted to have some sense of what we used to have. Chats in the garage, walks to the store. Looking at the plants, or listening to a ball-game. Going to Dodger Stadium to see them play the Yankees. Swapping stories. Hell, I just wanted an evening or so, to sit and shoot the shit. I wanted to tell him about my trip to Paris. He was in my mind a lot. He liked Paris. He liked Easter. I was on the Pont Nuef on Palm Sunday, the bells of Notre Dame were ringing, and I was listening to them. Really listening, the way one does only sometimes. I wanted to share it with him, because it was transportive. I don't think I did. I called on Easter Morning He wasn't up for talking. I told his son to pass it along. I hope he did. I hope he was still lucid enough to enjoy the thought. Maia got to say goodbye on Saturday. Easter Sunday was, it seems, a skosh too late. More I hope he knew I cared; that I called when I found out. I hope it wasn't too hard for him. We knew, in June, when I was there last, that the odds of us seeing each other again were slim. Time, money, work, distance, they all combine to make it hard. So, what with the cold, and all the rest, I'm a sniffly mess right now. I've called the person I knew wasn't likely to be on anyone's list to inform. I've leaned on friends, because death is hard. I'm trying to avoid self-recriminations, for all the things I didn't do the way I think; now, they would have been better. It would be the same, in most ways, if I'd done all of those just as it looks now I ought. Because death is hard. I've not quite slipped to the Angry at God state of mind, but I wasn't able to stay for the entire second Seder. I certainly wasn't up for going to Easter Mass, there was no joy in me, and the joy of others, even in text, was ashes in my mouth. I have beer, which I've shared with him (the 2004 Anchor Christmas), and sweet wines too. So those will serve to bring him, mindfully to mind, once the pains and aches of sudden reminders (as seeing a baseball game on TV as I was walking home last night was) have faded. Parting is not sweet sorrow, not even for a little bit. (15 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 8th, 2012
2:27 pm	Thoughts on living, and friends (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 4th, 2012
10:52 am	How not to spend a day on vacation in Paris Getting a doctor to prescribe Lacryvisc, prednisone and Valaciclovir. If you do have to get this done, don't go to an ER. They will be attentive enough, but a bit brusque. OK, that's not completely fair. Let me explain. Getting a doctor to prescribe Lacryvisc, prednisone and Valaciclovir. If you do have to get this done, don't go to an ER. They will be attentive enough, but a bit brusque. OK, that's not completely fair. Let me explain. I seem to be having a bout of Bell's Palsy. It's not fun, but it's not an emergency. If we'd known more about French medical care we'd have known that Emergency Rooms charge a premium for non-emergencies, and Bell's Palsy isn't, for all the distress is causes, an emergency. We'd also have known that French hospitals have outpatient specialist clinics, which anyone can use. Which means I'd not have spent an extra 150€ (weekend, non emergency, and what looked to be a double dip on the weekend). But even at that, the total bill was only 310€. I think I'll get it all reimbursed from the VA. The palsy is bearable. It started late Tues, or early Weds. Food tasted wrong, as if my tongue were coated in fat, or saran wrap. I was attributing it to some sort of external damage... sleeping with my mouth open too long, or some odd reaction to something I ate; some sort of unknowable allergic reaction. Thus. evening I went out to eat, and was listening to my iPod and tried to whistle along with the music. I couldn't. The left side of my mouth wasn't answering my commands. There is some numbness in my cheek, my left eye doesn't close quite as I would like, but it does blink. Eating is annoying, but not a problem. My tongue is malfunctioning on the left side now, instead of the entire surface (well, mostly. It varies). All my chewing (and proper tasting) is done on the right side of my mouth. Swallowing is strange, and liquids try to escape. Some aspects of my speech are off, mostly in the way some of my vowels sound. My russian accent is shot, and I think some of my trouble being understood in French is related. When it's being a real problem (because it seems to be variable in intensity) I feel as if I sound a trifle drunk. ladymondegreen and akawil say I don't look any different, but the ways it is affecting me are, as one might imagine, pretty apparent to me. So I keep checking to see if I can whistle (not yet) and I am limited to the fifes, as the slack half of my mouth makes playing a penny-whistle less pleasant, because the oddity is the right side of my face feels swollen, and overtight. It will, almost certainly, pass. If not, well I'll learn to deal with it. White wines are good, red are "wrong". Coffee is still tasty. Bread is good, so long as I keep it on the right side. Life goes on. I seem to be having a bout of Bell's Palsy. It's not fun, but it's not an emergency. If we'd known more about French medical care we'd have known that Emergency Rooms charge a premium for non-emergencies, and Bell's Palsy isn't, for all the distress is causes, an emergency. We'd also have known that French hospitals have outpatient specialist clinics, which anyone can use. Which means I'd not have spent an extra 150€ (weekend, non emergency, and what looked to be a double dip on the weekend). But even at that, the total bill was only 310€. I think I'll get it all reimbursed from the VA. The palsy is bearable. It started late Tues, or early Weds. Food tasted wrong, as if my tongue were coated in fat, or saran wrap. I was attributing it to some sort of external damage... sleeping with my mouth open too long, or some odd reaction to something I ate; some sort of unknowable allergic reaction. Thus. evening I went out to eat, and was listening to my iPod and tried to whistle along with the music. I couldn't. The left side of my mouth wasn't answering my commands. There is some numbness in my cheek, my left eye doesn't close quite as I would like, but it does blink. Eating is annoying, but not a problem. My tongue is malfunctioning on the left side now, instead of the entire surface (well, mostly. It varies). All my chewing (and proper tasting) is done on the right side of my mouth. Swallowing is strange, and liquids try to escape. Some aspects of my speech are off, mostly in the way some of my vowels sound. My russian accent is shot, and I think some of my trouble being understood in French is related. When it's being a real problem (because it seems to be variable in intensity) I feel as if I sound a trifle drunk. ladymondegreen and akawil say I don't look any different, but the ways it is affecting me are, as one might imagine, pretty apparent to me. So I keep checking to see if I can whistle (not yet) and I am limited to the fifes, as the slack half of my mouth makes playing a penny-whistle less pleasant, because the oddity is the right side of my face feels swollen, and overtight. It will, almost certainly, pass. If not, well I'll learn to deal with it. White wines are good, red are "wrong". Coffee is still tasty. Bread is good, so long as I keep it on the right side. Life goes on. (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, March 12th, 2012
5:47 pm	Playing with my food. I've been having some fun with food. I took the "cake" from the bottom of the mead and used it to make a levain Last week I took it out, fed it, and used it to make some bread. It was a success. I don't have a kitchen-aid anymore, so the kneading was done by hand. I had a moderately wet dough, and the rise was pretty slow. To be honest, since wine and beer yeasts are said to be poor for bread I had my doubts. Not least because I've tried in the past to make a beer yeast do the job, and the result was underwhelming. So, as it looked completely stalled after about four hours, I put it aside and left it until morning. It had doubled by about 18 hours, and I turned it out, degassed it some and set the stone in the oven to heat. I cooked it at 400F, for about 45 minutes. It was done when it came out, but still a tad moist inside. The crumb was small-eyed, but open. The taste was good. A vague hint of something sour. Not sourdough, but something hinting at it. It was the yeast nose that made it worth the effort. It had the undernotes of the sort of yeast undertones that come off of Veuve Cliquot, or Tattainger. Not as sweet as a Bollinger, but nutty, and a hint of earthy. I'm making some more right now, though it seems to be rising a bit faster (which may have something to do with the weather being warmer this week than last). (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 28th, 2012
2:48 pm	Where the bee sups, there sip I I did something new this month. Something I've wanted to do for a while. Made mead. I don't recall where I've laid the notebook, so the exact recipe isn't to hand. In about 4 gallons of water, 12 lbs of clover honey. This was something of a proof of concept, so I didn't go chasing down some local apiarist to get really fresh honey. We used a commercially available clover. Heated it to about 120-130F It turns out the thermometer we had wasn't as reliable as we'd have liked. I bought a new one at work the next day, so I know my fermenting area was keeping about 72F. I'm tempted to get a recording thermometer, esp. if I try to do this in the summer. Pitched a White Labs liquid, as opposed to getting a dehydrated, yeast. WLP715, which is a champagne yeast. Did a starter off of that; because meads are prone to stalling. Added 4tsp of Fermax (for the same reason) and poured it in. Starting SG was 1.1248, measured at 29° Brix, and from a 15.8° Brix finish we get an FG of 1.0644, for an estimated ABV of 9.4% (if one is using the simpler equation [ABV = (og – fg) * 131.25] one gets an ABV of 7.8. I used [ABV =(76.08 * (og-fg) / (1.775-og)) * (fg / 0.794]which gives me an ABV of 9.4. Looking into it, I found the latter is probably more accurate for the high SG I started with. In any case, it's in the moderate wine range now. I'll put it on the refractometer when it's done with the secondary fermentation, and we'll see what it says then) It took about 10 days to slow, and hadn't completely stalled when I bottled it, with belches leaving the airlock about once a minute. So I racked it off the lees, and then put it into bottles. I used a blueberry honey to give a mild dosage, and bottled it. In 6-12 months that will be a mildly sparkling mead. I have four virgin bottles, which I got from work, which are the only one's I'm really worried about the possibility of bursting. I need to drink more beer which comes with toggle tops. Capping wasn't hard, but it's a lot easier to just line the gasket up and fold the wire down. It also makes it easier to pull a little bit out to test. The flavor is, of course, still a bit harsh. It reminds me of a mead ladymondegreen liked, and I was a little ambivalent about, but I don't know how it's going to age. (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 21st, 2012
10:26 pm	Travel Plans I will be in Seattle from Friday morning 27 Jan, , until Monday morning; 30 Jan. (we leave the hotel not later than noon), to attend Conflikt; at the Holiday Inn, SeaTac. The Con starts at 6:30 p.m., and ladymondegreen is leading a workshop 7:30. We will probably be doing some travelling about in town, Saturday evening is pretty full, which means if people aren't available early on Friday, that meeting up is probably a Sunday evening thing, with the convention ending, officially, at 5:30 p.m, with a dinner break before people return to sing until they can't stand any longer. We will have a rental car; but if people want to meet for dinner it needs to be either Kosher, or vegetarian (sushi is doable, because she can eat raw fish). (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
2:11 pm	An anniversary A year ago I broke my ankle. As such things go, it was a pretty simple break, and the healing was straightforward. The bone is knit, but the healing isn’t actually over. I can still feel the line of the break, and there are still bruises on my leg. For all that the healing wasn’t all that difficult, there is no way I could have done it without the help of a lot of people. I’d like to thank (again) klrmn, savorie, djdigit and vvvexation , without whose help and comfort my first couple of weeks would have been much less tolerable. I’d have been stir crazy and unbearable to one and all without them. elisem deserves special mention for the kindness she sent me, without which my entire convalescence would have been much closer to miserable. commodorified’s, “box fort” for the bed was a godsend, and the forbearance ladymondegreen showed when she came to visit was perhaps more than I deserved (cranky, and drugged, as I was). Most especially I need to thank tenacious_snail, who (quite apart from any self-interest she might have had in not living with me under the influence of cabin-fever and opiates) was supportive from the get go. I never doubted that, had I thought it needful, she would have; without hesitation, abandoned our plans to go to the DeYoung to see Van Gogh, (and a lot of other pretty paintings; and no, I don’t think I made the wrong call. I’m glad I didn’t know it was broken yet, because those eight paintings were worth a day and a night of moderate pain… some things are worth great deals of effort to see [and a heap of praise to the woman who saw to it that I could see it as it ought to be seen]. I don’t regret the wait to go to the hospital one bit). She shepherded me through lots of things I’d not have managed half so well on my own, was; steadily, unstinting of her time to see to it I got to things I couldn’t have done easily (even when I could have done them myself). She put up with my living on the couch for a couple of weeks (imposing on her space/ability to be alone), and was a pillar of support and comfort. Thanks are due to lots of people I can’t recall to name from this remove, emotional support, and random passers-by who were helpful. Some folks who gave me advice (like the person who told me about “kneel-chair”s). I’m not one to pretend that everything happens for a purpose, or that every cloud has a silver lining (certainly this cost me a couple of grand in lost wages), but the way my friends rallied to my side,and the ways in which people in general were kind, and helpful, could have certainly damaged a Cynic’s certainty. For that I should like to say thanks to one and all. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 5th, 2012
9:35 pm	Dailies Yesterday I got a call saying that a friend of ours had an extra ticket for "The Daily Show, with Jon Stewart", and it was mine if I was willing to brave the weather. D'uh. So I got dressed, hit the Path, grabbed an E Train to 50th, walked over to 11th Ave, and no one I knew was in the line. The drill for the Daily Show is, get a twitter feed saying there are spots open, be one of the people who fills out the form in time, and show up before 1430. First come, first served. If you want to have someone who isn't with you get a ticket they have to show before 1600, at which time it's open to all. But my party found me, we got tickets, and then went to grab a bite eat. We'd been told to be back at 1645, but we (along with lots of others) misheard that as the line would start being admitted at 1645, so we were all there at about 1635... in the roughly 30F weather. They let us in early. There is a metal detector. If you have a bag, you have to leave it (with a piece of ID). If they see you using a phone, iPad, etc., they will collect it. They are (with some justification) worried about photos/surreptitious taping. About three people had their phones collected. The wait is sort of timeless. The set is evenly lit, and nothing really changes for the hour, or so, one is sitting. It's a studio, so the space is cavernous. They play music, and people are sitting. I had a book, and passed the time reading, and chatting with my friends. The Warm-up guy came out. I don't know if this was a tough crowd, or if the Daily Show attracts that sort of person, but it's a good thing he has a low-key Don Rickles ability, since the folks he called on weren't the most outgoing sorts. His first person was the friend who had the extra ticket... I don't recall just what he said, but it was a bit deadpan. Then he called on a kid (the minimum age is supposed to be 18, but this kid wasn't (he was with his parents, which may have made the difference. There were some other people who looked to be in the 15-16 range too). The kid balked at giving his name, that was when the Rickles-lite came out. It wasn't too bad. Then came the guy with the accent. When the warm-up duded asked if was from England, the answer was no. When he asked where he was from the response was, "How many other countries do you know". The guy was from Australia, and not being cowed; there was a bit of back and forth and he moved on. The point was, of course, to get us loosened up. The stage is a sinkhole for sound. The chuckles you hear on the telly... deafening in the studio. Stewart came in, did a few minutes of warm up. We'd been told he'd take questions, and that the odd non-sequitor which starts so many shows comes out of that. My friend asked him, coming from a comedy background (he's done a fair bit of improv), what was like to be speaking truth to power. Stewart took exception to this, and I know why. As he explained he gets compared to serious news personalities (I forget if it was my friend, or Stewart who mentioned Cronkite), and he's not that. He's doing a comedy show. Yeah, they did a survey asking who people trusted more, a trio of the taking heads, or Stewart, and Stewart came out on top, but (said Stewart), a sequined dildo would have beaten them. Which is probably not true, but I think, in the larger context, the kernel of what Stewart is really doing, and why people like his stuff is there. It's, oddly enough, in the reference to Cronkite. People trusted Cronkite. They thought he had integrity. Not that he didn't have a personal set of views, but that he didn't let them intrude into his work. That's why Nixon said, "If we've lost Cronkite, we've lost the American people." Stewart seems to have that same sort of integrity. When he's talking about how the news is made with Wallace, or O'Reilly, one can see it. He's skewering the ways in which that sense of integrity seems to have gone by the boards. When a big deal is made of, "The War on Christmas", and that's treated as being as important as the economy being in the toilet. When the arrant obstructionism of one party, and the feckless lack of spine in the other is lost in the hoopla over, well just about any hoopla... be it the Kardashians, or Michael Jackson's doctor's trial, or that annual outrage fest over the war on Christmas (right... last night I saw commercials mentioning the need for follow on items to make those Christmas presents better.... replete with Santa Claus; but next November, as the turkey and pumpkin pie are settling in the stomach of America, Bill O'Reilly will be waving the bloody shirt of the "War on Christmas" to rally the reactionaries, and distract from real news). In his five minutes of focus, Stewart talks about real things, and points out the Emperor, if not naked, is running around in his underwear. The taping, was fun. We were loud. My friend and I can be heard, if you knew what to listen for, at the, "I look forward to the day I get to hear, "We are all Austrians"; because it took a minute for most people to process. There is a non-sequitor joke at the beginning, a smile and a nod to the audience. I don't think the show (or Colbert, which I'd also like to attend) would still be going without the audience, and, for all the schedule has got to be brutal; the crew seems to be aware of it, and to appreciate it. It's worth going. If you go, be loud, it's all done in long takes. Each segment is done, front to back, in one single shot, and they are good. You may not be able to see, because of the cameras, but the graphics are on the monitors. And there's no bleeping when someone says, "fuck". If you want to watch the episode is starts here (1 Comment |Comment on this)
9:30 pm	That meme about the top song So... the week I was born the week the number one song in the US was Groovin'. In the city I was born the top song on the local radio station was Windy. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
8:46 pm	How not to get my business I just didn't order some brewing equipment from, Learn to Brew, LLC, by way of Amazon. It was a five gallon carboy, a bottle capper, some caps, a carboy sling, some bungs and an vapor lock. The total for the order was about 60 bucks. The shipping, standard ground, delivery date 1-3 weeks, came to more than 50 dollars. I figured this must be because of the carboy being hard to package. Since there is a brewing supply in Queens, I figured we could go to get it. So I droped that from the order, which reduced my goods to about 30 bucks, and the shipping to 29 dollars and change. I went to their website (which is not user friendly. The stoppers don't say what size bottle carboy they fit, and the "continue shopping" button doesn't take one back to the page one was on, but rather to the homepage). From them directly, the shipping was 7.99. So, whatever kickback Amazon gets from them, Amazon lost. (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 22nd, 2011
11:03 pm	That time of year I can relax now. I don't have to work until well after Christmas Day. Since I've been at work more than eight hours a day for the past five days, and working 4-5 days out of every seven for the past month... I am glad. Because work means being on my feet if I'm on the floor. Add in the trips down the 21 steps to the stockroom (which are a bit fewer, for me, in the days before Christmas, because I am chained to the knife counter and we have all our overstock in arms reach) and this is a busy time. I've spent the past couple of days training someone new (whom I think is being kept, or he'd not have been told to shadow me for a couple of day) which is nice, but it's being done while dozens of people come up to ask questions. Add that to step out from behind the island of calm that selling 60 knives in seven hours is, means to be bouncing from one person to another like a ping-pong ball (because you can't finish helping one person without someone else demanding assistance; sometimes in the middle of answering a question for the other person), and forty hours of retail is mind-numbing in the extreme. But I am lucky. I celebrate the entire 12 days of Christmas, so my personal holiday will be much quieter than that which people who are looking to just the single day of climax to a secular season of pressure tend to get. I have to say that three years of retail prior to Christmas is not the best thing for one's Christmas spirit. At least the music in my shop hasn't been all seasonal, all the time; which is mostly a problem because one or two songs are bothersome in single doses, and become repulsive in massive repetition: Santa should NOT do the Mambo, just sayin'). I like Christmas. I even value the secular nature of it. The sense of peace, and comfort to the rest of humanity it manages to infuse to people. But I am glad I don't wrap it all into one orgy of gifting and being happy. Dickens summed it up so very well in "A Christmas Carol". "Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!" It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again. "At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said "I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me!" We are our brother's keepers, and in this season of the year, in the middle of the sales, and the pressure to buy, we remember it. And that makes me glad. God Bless us, everyone. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 16th, 2011
12:18 pm	Changes I don't know her. I've seen things she's written, and sent a bit of clarification about how seeing an eclipse through a pin-hole isn't time lapse. And I've never had cancer. But I know about how there are "bright line" events, things one does, or suffers, which divide the world into before and after. Things which separate one from the rest of the world, just a little, by making one part of a group most people will be lucky enough to stay outside of. Here's to hope. The Diagnosis (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 20th, 2011
10:40 pm	Getting the license Was worse than I expected. I had to fill out the application three times. One as an application, two as transfer. Why? Because they did a check to see if I was possessed of a valid license, once for each endorsement, auto and motorcycle. It's not as if they sent them in the mail to Calif. No, they did it as a system to system records check. Total fees, for this, $51. Gods, but it makes Calif. look sensible. A whopping $15 is all I'd have paid there. Then again, I look at the insanely low (and odd) fee schedule for vehicles,and I begin to understand why the roads here are so bad; and (perhaps, why the parking enforcement is so aggressive. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
12:01 pm	Grumble It's going to cost me more to register my 20 year old motorcycle, than it would to register a car. older than 2 years Under 3,500 lbs. $46.50 within 2 years Under 3,500 lbs. $59.00 Motorcycle (pleasure)- effective 7/6/09 $65 (3 Comments |Comment on this)
11:58 am	Security theater It's harder to get a Driver's license in NJ than it is to get a passport. Which is good, because if I didn't have a passport I couldn't get a New Jersey Driver's License. I need to have either, a passport, my birth certificate adoption Papers, Certificate of naturilization, or a New Jeresey ID/license not older than one year past expiration. I also need Civil marriage, domestic partnership or civil union certificate issued by the municipality or state in which the ceremony occurred. Please note: Photo copies are not acceptable. Certificates issued by religious entities are not acceptable. Order or decree of divorce, dissolution or termination* Court order for a legal name change, signed by a judge or court clerk* Current US military dependent card US military photo retiree card Valid NJ firearm purchaser card Or, US school photo ID card with transcript or school records US college photo ID card with transcript Valid federal, state or local government employee driver license Valid federal, state or local government employee photo ID card US military discharge papers (DD214) FAA pilot license If I don't have one of those, I need two (but cannot use more than two) of the following. Current/expired less than one year non-digital NJ PHOTO driver license Current PHOTO driver license from any other state or the District of Columbia Social Security card Bank statement or record ATM card with preprinted name and applicant’s signature. (Please note: An ATM card and bank statement cannot be submitted together.) Current health insurance card, prescription card OR Employee ID card with printed pay stub State professional license NJ public assistance card with photo (also known as a NJ Social Services ID card) High school diploma, GED or college diploma Property tax statement, bill or receipt issued by a New Jersey municipality Veterans Affairs universal access photo ID card</i> (I'm not sure what that last is. I might have one). To go with that, I need proof of address. Thankfully my bank has accepted my chainge address, because it's the only acceptable proof of address I am likely have without doing some really strange hoop jumping. If I take all of that in, and surrender my out of state license, then I can be given one from New Jersey. When I want to renew my license, it seems I need to do the whole thing over again. I look at that list and the thing wich strikes me is how easy a lot of them are to fake. Does the State of New Jersey check every possible diploma with the school that issued it? If I have someone's SS number, how hard; given the way these things are linked, would it be to get a transcript to go with a "diploma"? It's even easier to fake a DD-214. The clerks aren't going to know what is slightly screwed up if someone takes a look at this site it links to an online registry of DD-214s, just in case you wanted to get one which you could use to build a good fake: heck, here's one just asking to be grabbed. A little work to find the form online, and away you go). I have two DD-214s, and somewhere I am supposed to have an NGB-22, which is the equivalent form from my release from the National Guard. That's in addition to the Honorable Discharge I don't have a copy of of. What, I wonder, is the difference between a non-digital PHOTO driver license and a digital one, and why can I use one of each? (at 1 point, and four points, respectively)? What it does do is make it a lot more expensive (and hassle) to get an ID. ** IMPORTANT INFORMATION: If your current legal name is different from the name on your civil birth certificate (e.g., your maiden name), then you must show legal proof of the name change. Legal proof = Certified marriage or civil union certificate, divorce decree or court order linking the new name with a previous name. Note: A divorce decree may be used as authority to resume using a previous name only if it contains the new name and the previous name and permits a return to use of the previous name. (13 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 11th, 2011
2:32 pm	Ok, I'll do it too I wasn't planning to do this. 10 years ago I was asleep. Not the metaphorical sleep that so many have tossed about, I was aware of terrorism, and new the outlines of what was going on in Afghanistan; I was much more informed about Iraq. No, I was in my bed, sleeping. Maia's mother called back on the intercom and said I might, "want to put on [my] funny clothes, because someone just blew up the World Trade Center". I looked at the clock, it was about 9 in the morning. I did what any smart soldier does at a time like that (the "funny clothes she was talking about were my BDUs, the greens/browns and black of summer in Germany/Central Europe that was the everyday wear of the US Army/Marine Corps/Air Force in 2001), I went back to sleep. "If they need me, they'll call". I was, of course, recalling the earlier bombing, which had been dramatic, but nothing to call out the Guard for. Maia got up to use the bathroom, and when she came back she asked, in a sleepy voice, what might have caused the World Trade Center (which she'd just been to that previous April) to fall down. And, as I faded back to sleep, I thought, "Shit, that means the wine cellars of Windows on the World are gone." Woke up, called the armory was told to have my uniform handy, but not worry about it. The sky was quiet. That was odd. We lived near an airport, as I've lived near an airport most of my concious life. the sounds of small planes and jets was an ever present background noise... sometime in my middle teens we moved near Vany Nuys Airport, which had a MAC wing, so I got to know the sound of the old warbirds which made that airport home (AT-6s,a and P-51s, mostly, but the occasional visit from P-47s, B-25s, A-26s, and the rare; but glorious, B-17s. I saw the F-17 up close, and personal, as it made a couple of runs through the pattern before it was set up for the Van Nuys Airshow. I went up to the roof, and got to look into the gear wells. It was still so closely guarded that armed Air Police were patrolling the taped out perimeter; you could take photos but try to get closer than about 50 yards and they'd arrest you). The quiet was alien. We had jobs at the LA County Fair, in the Dairy Exhibition. We weren't scheduled to work, but I figured we ought to go in. One, I was going stir crazy in the quiet, and the television was an hypnotic horror. They said nothing, and the collapse was a loop just barely more bearable than the babble on the screen. We were practically the only people to show up. Mostly what we did was shovel shit, today we milked. Then Maia's mother's cell-phone rang. I needed to go to the Armory. Civvies, uniform out of sight. Spent the day being cooped up. Antsy. The urge to "do something" was palpable. We spent some time chasing shadows. We talked. We kept bitching at the television, for saying not a damn thing of import. I wished I was with the cows. That had been meaningful. They didn't care what was going on. They needed to be milked. The world went on. In the middle of the morning, as Maia and I were getting ready to head to the Fairgrounds the radio put Wynton Marsalis, and the English Chamber Orchestra playing my favorite movement, from my favorite symphony, Haydn's Trumpet concerto. The sound was (is) incredible. I find it fills all of space with hope. It's not joy, but hope; strong, and painful. It's probably colored now by the memory of that day, but there it is. The world is made up of those associations. So there you have it. My memories of "That Tuesday". A wine cellar I never get to visit. The need to milk the cows. The strains of vibrant hope. All the rest... ephemera. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, September 10th, 2011
12:41 pm	Back to the kitchen with me. Food. I've been cooking again. I have three people to cook for, and the present situation afford me the time I need to adapt to the new conditions. First, I have someone who keeps kosher, and I have someone who is lactose intolerant. That means some of my default behaviors have to change. I can't do cream sauces. My usual tricks of using butter to brown, flavor and finish dishes, are out. I also have no nightshade in the repertoire, because Merav is allergic. No potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, or chiles. Weds was impromptu. Merav took a fall on Tues. to the visit we had planned became company coming in. I dashed to the store (the first time I've been on the motorcycle since a couple of days before I moved, call it a month), and got some chicken quarters, a couple of leeks and some cremini, and pine nuts. Took a couple of onions, and one leek set them to caramelise. Browned the chicken. Put the oinons on the bottom of a deep cast iron pot, onto that I put parsnips and carrots, and then four of the thigh/drumstick quarters. Tossed in some fennel seed and some celery seed; let it simmer for about an hour. Then I chopped about 1 1/2 cups of mushrooms and let it finish. Made a pot of rice. The leeks and onions were a little more brown than I would have like (I think I need to get some heat diffusers without the central hole mine have), but they weren't more than a bit scorched. The pot liquor was all the sauce one needed. Thus. I took the other two quarters, stood them on top of the tops of two leeks, and put some water under them so they could poach/steam. Set that on the back burner; in a visionware pan, so I could see the progress. I took some schmaltz from the browning for the previous nights fricasee, and put a couple of onions into it to sweat. Took the various leftover "meat" rice from the fridge.chopped some more mushrooms, and carrots and parsnips. Put the mushrooms into the onions and cooked them into a sort of "duxelles crudo", in that I didn't mince them small, and didn't let them fall apart. When the chicken was done, I took it out, shredded the meat off the bones, fished the leeks out of the pot and put the skin and bones back in, with the tops of the neeps and carrots, as well as the uncooked root end of the previous nights leeks, added water just to cover and set it to simmer. Mixed the meat into the rice, and put it into a 175 oven for about 45 minutes. Last night was more labor intensive. I'd roasted a kampucha, and a butternut, squash the say before. I pulled the meat from the shells, grated some ginger into it* , and mixed in not enough pine nuts. Be liberal with them. I also made up some duxelles, mushroom heavy, and onion light. Then I rolled out the pasta and made ravioli with the squash, and half-moons with the duxelles. All they needed was a bit of pepper, but brown butter would not have been amiss. *be careful, the ginger is very faint to the nose, and shows up against the squash, taste the mix, or aim for less than you think you need. About 1" of fresh ginger, minced is probably not too much; I used a little too much, it wasn't unpleasant, but the flavor was more ginger forward than I'd have liked. (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, August 29th, 2011
12:40 pm	On preparedness, and reaction So, NYC was spared the wrath of Cat 1, or 2, hurricane. Thanks be to God. Now come the Monday Morning Quaterbacks to say Bloomberg overreacted to the possibility. Nonsense. I overprepared. The odds of a sewage backflow was minor. Damming the downstairs toilet, in case it did happen, and my books were washed in raw sludge, not really needed; but if it had happened, and I'd not done it... I'd have been guilty of not doing something simple. It would have been far worse if Bloomberg had done the equivalent, and he had larger problems. On Thus. the prediction was for a strong Cat 1, or even a weak Cat 2 hurricane coming straight into the city. At high tide, during a new moon. Hundreds of thousands of people live in the areas which such a storm would wipe out. People who, as with those in Katrina, don't own cars. People who need help to evacuate. People, such as those in nursing homes would take about 48 hours to get to safety. He has to pull the trigger then, or gamble that the predictions were wrong. That's a hell of a risk to take with people's lives. So no, he didn't over-react. He didn't even over-prepare. We got lucky. Looking around the net the story isn't about how much damage there actually was, but more the tone is about how it's "minor" compared to what was prepared for. Stories about how it will only take a couple of days to get air-travel back to normal. Things about how unimpressed New Yorkers were with the storm. Wrap-ups that close with, quips about how the surfers are in love with the waves, or Atlantic City has already re-opened the casinos. Which is infuriating. We were lucky. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. What about the time is as bad as it could be? As a grace note, it looks like the ability to monitor weather in general is going to take a big hit. Budget cuts affect satellites. That could be bad. "When you turn on your TV, or pick up your smart phone, the three- to seven-day weather outlook you see is coming from NOAA," she said, adding that the endangered polar-orbiting satellites are responsible for 93 percent of the data that is fed into her agency's forecast models and then provided to the likes of The Weather Channel and AccuWeather. So what would happen if this information wasn't included? NOAA recently got a sneak peak by looking at data from the February 2011 blizzard that struck the East Coast. Researchers reran the same forecast model for "Snowmageddon" without the polar satellite data and compared the result with the forecasts made during the epic snowstorm. In the test with blinded polar satellites, the storm's predicted track was off by tens of miles and snowfall figures fell short by nearly half, according to Sullivan." The link goes to a presentation on the study. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, August 27th, 2011
9:29 am	A different form of "austerity" Malawi and Argentina have both told the international banking community to pound sand. Both of them survived. This is Argentina's story In May 2001, 11.6% of the population was living in extreme poverty and 35.9% were under the poverty line. Ten years later, the figure for extreme poverty is at 4.4% of the population and those under the poverty line at 15.3%. Argentina renegotiated its debt and balanced their international trade. The country abandoned its dependency on financial institutions and global capital. A stream of left leaning (considered populist by some) governments followed, giving preponderance to internal development and investment schemes. International media still portrays Argentina as an unreliable country (“not serious” according to a fairly recent article at The New York Times). However, the country has avoided further liberalization of its markets and impositions from the IMF, which always come with demands of budget cuts from public services and social programs. Every IMF loan includes a set of mandatory “recommendations” that deplete benefits and welfare schemes for the working class and poor and demands of compliance with Free Trade principles that hurt local economies. Western economies currently battling the effects of a long term recession and pressures from the International Financial industry might benefit from adopting a few of the measures that Argentina put in place in the aftermath of the 2001 crisis. The US currently struggles with high long-term unemployment and a USD 400bn trade deficit. If the government implemented a strong program of workers run cooperatives that gave prevalence to training opportunities, full ownership of tools and facilities and fomented local manufacturing, the long term effects would most likely be unprecedented. Self-sustaining communities would shift to a model of “Buy Local”, not only for regionally produced food but also for consumer goods and services, with a focus on development and individual participation. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, August 25th, 2011
1:07 pm	On the movement of things My stuff has arrived. It will be delivered on Monday. The saga: I had it picked up on Aug. 3, with an estimated delivery of 6 business days (so about 10/11 Aug). It got delayed. Then I was informed, by way of the tracking information, that it was in NJ, and I needed to call for delivery arrangements. Because of the need to get permits to put the cubes on the street, and the fees I needed to pay if I didn't have them delivered in short order, combined with my doing all the legwork on my legs... I ran about like a chicken sans head. It took two days, and involved one fruitless attempt, and then being told I didn't need to go to the other office, before the other office finally got around to answering their phone and telling me I did need to come in. So I hot-footed it around Jersey City to the tune of 13 miles in two days, and spent 180 USD on permits. Which was when I found out only two of my cubes had been delivered. The reason they hadn't called me was they didn't have all my stuff. This, I was assured, was rare. Even more rare was them not knowing where my cube was. Ok.... So, having spent the money, I had them deliver the two they did have. I also called their central facility and got the cost of the extra fees I'll have to pay rebated. The delivery was a bit late (I cut them more slack than I do cable installers, because they have a much higher likelihood of cascade effects slowing secondary deliveries). I called to see how it was going, and the person who answered the phone (whom I had not spoken to), recognised my name, and called to someone else to see if there was any word. My cube had, in fact, just been found. In Renton. So they got it dispatched, and it took it's own sweet time. As a piece of advice, if you use U-Pack/ABF, they seem to be good. The local service folks are really attentive, and seem to care (the one who called to tell me my stuff was here knew that I don't have my own bed yet). Arkansas is willing to do some work to keep you happy; though I should have liked a bit more off my bill than I got, I am at least not out of pocket for the extra monetary cost of the delay). But, if I were doing this again, esp. with the permitting issues (which I didn't know the details of before I left. I don't know that I could have been made aware of them before I went and talked to the various depts which handle them, because no one here had done this sort of move before), I'd take the guaranteed delivery option. That would have made the permitting more leisurely (I could have avoided about 10 miles of the walking), and I'd have been entitled to a significant rebate of the $4,000 the shipping cost. (5 Comments |Comment on this)