No fixed plans. Not intent upon arriving.
Breakfast was a waffle with maple syrup, a glass of orange juice, and two cups of coffee.
At lunch time I had a bottle of Saranac Pale Ale.
Gretchen and I made two more batches of HOT salsa and a batch of marinera sauce this afternoon, during which I had two more bottles of Saranac Pale Ale.
Dinner was half a rack of spare ribs, baked beans, and another bottle of Saranac Pale Ale.
Breakfast was a bowl of cold cereal, a glass of orange juice, and two cups of coffee.
Lunch was a bowl of Potato Leek Soup, a slice of Italian bread, and a bottle of Saranac Pale Ale.
While doing chores during the afternoon, I had the opportunity to have two more bottles of Saranac Pale Ale.
Dinner was two ears of sweet corn, and a salad of tomato and cucumber with Balsamic Vinaigrette.
Breakfast was three slices of toasted Italian bread with honey, a glass of orange juice, and two cups of coffee.
I had another cup of coffee at the office.
I walked over to the HUB at lunch with some of the guys from the office — about three miles, round trip — and had Panda Express orange chicken with mixed vegetables on chow mein noodles and a fortune cookie.
There’s a secret romance blooming!
Go for it, in spite of your hesitation.
Lucky Numbers 10, 14, 41, 44, 45, 46
Dinner was two bowls of Potato Leek Soup, three slices of Foolproof Focaccia, and two bottles of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.
Gretchen and I got up early again today and went for a morning walk. We went down to the edge of town and back. That is around 2½ miles. Breakfast was a bowl of cold cereal, a glass of orange juice, and two cups of coffee. I weighed 157 pounds.
At the office I had another cup of coffee.
I made a mid morning snack of an Act II Mini Bag microwave popcorn.
I took a 4 mile walk around campus over lunch and stopped along the way at the Penn State Creamery for a Heath Bar ice cream cone.
Dinner was pasta salad, two slices of Foolproof Focaccia, applesauce, and two bottles of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.
I went for a lower body workout at the MBNA Fitness Center tonight:
I am really surprised at this, but I think I want to increase everything next time. Great workout. I felt like dancing afterwards.
As food-science dweeb Alton Brown of the Food Network’s “Good Eats” explains it, tomatoes contain numerous and complex chemical compounds that contribute to their flavor. Below 50°F, Brown says, some of those compounds “turn off” — permanently. Chill your tomato, and that extra tomato-y something special that would have danced on your tongue is gone for good.
On the flip side, Brown says, some of those compounds are also alcohol-soluble, and otherwise inert, so cooking your tomatoes with wine, or with vodka, as in one classic pasta sauce, makes them even more flavorful.
So respect the compounds. Keep the chill off, give your tomatoes a swig of something fermented, and they’ll stay happy. If your tomatoes are happy, you’ll be happy, too.
¹ The New York Times Your Money section had this to say about that:
“My gasoline station manager didn’t know that the price of oil was near $50 a barrel,” [James E. Glassman, senior United States economist at J.P. Morgan,] said. “He just knows what the oil company charges him for gasoline when the delivery truck pulls up each night.” That price has been dropping.
The average price of a gallon of mid-grade gasoline hit $2.155 cents in May. But since then it has dropped back to $1.97 a gallon, according to the Department of Energy.
While Reuters had this to say:
The average pump price has fallen about 20 cents per gallon since late May, according to the survey. At the same time, oil prices surged, closing above $46 a barrel on Friday.
“This 12-week trend of price cuts at the pump has to come to an end and soon,” said survey editor Trilby Lundberg. “Gasoline prices are turning around already in the wholesale markets and price hikes will probably appear at the street level very soon.”
NPR also did a piece on how the Pump Prices Dip Even as Crude Oil Rate Soars, saying “Crude oil prices approach $50 a barrel on the worldwide market, emphasizing a months-long trend of soaring demand and potential threats to various oil producers. Yet American motorists have recently enjoyed a small, steady drop in gas prices.” This piece makes it all seem quite reasonable and logical. If I had ever seen this happen before, I might even buy it, but my experience is that when there is even a hint that crude prices will rise, gasoline prices instantly shoot through the roof and when crude prices fall, gasoline prices stay cautiously elevated, just in case the dip is a fluke.
[Update: According to Forbes, crude has settled at $43.18 a barrel… the first positive close for crude futures since last Friday, when prices began their fall from a record high of $49.40.]
A compound used by blueberries and grapes to fight off fungal infections could help lower cholesterol, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.
The compound, called pterostilbene, also helps regulate blood sugar and might help fight type-2 diabetes, the researchers told a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Philadelphia.
The finding adds to a growing list of reasons to eat colorful fruit, especially blueberries, which are rich in compounds known as antioxidants. These molecules battle cell and DNA damage involved in cancer, heart disease, diabetes and perhaps also brain degeneration.
A federal experiment in restoring oysters to the Chesapeake Bay this summer unexpectedly turned into an underwater buffet for shellfish-loving predators, with about $45,000 worth of oysters quickly eaten, scientists said yesterday.
In June, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dumped about 1 million oysters into Virginia’s Great Wicomico River. But within weeks, about 750,000 of the oysters were consumed by a creature called the cownose ray…
The demise of the oysters, first reported yesterday by the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, is not the first time that nature has crossed scientists’ attempts to revive wildlife in the bay.
In 1985, for instance, a moratorium was imposed to protect the declining population of rockfish. That was good news for rockfish, but it turned out to be bad news for blue crabs, one of the fish’s favorite meals.
- Be talented
- Be neat
- Be self-critical
- Remove every extraneous word
- Never look at a reference book while doing a first draft
- Know the markets
- Write to entertain
- Ask yourself frequently, “Am I having fun?”
- Know how to evaluate criticism
- Observe all rules for proper submission
- An agent? Forget it. For now
- If it’s bad, kill it