Category: Uncategorized

Gretchen cubed up some of the left-over ham from the other night and made ham and egg scramble for breakfast with a slice of toast with butter and a glass of orange juice for breakfast. The reset of the ham &mdash; bone and all &mdash; went into a soup pot to make split pea soup. Gretchen also sliced up the bread to start drying for the stuffing. Today I weighed in at 164&hellip; there has to be something wrong with the scale! <img src="http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/h/mhl100/images/slant.png" height="18" width="18" alt="Hmmm..." />



<ins datetime="2003-11-27T15:08:00-05:00">Gretchen and I had a little crudit&eacute;s for lunch today. We cut up a couple carrots and celery stalks and served them with a little of <a href="http://www.newmansown.com/4a3_creamyc.html" title="Newman's Own - Creamy  Caesar">Newman&rsquo;s Own Creamy Caesar</a> as a dip. We also had a <a href="http://www.sierra-nevada.com/beers/celebrationale.html" title="Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale">Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale</a>.</ins>



<ins datetime="2003-11-27T19:46:00-05:00">We have a standing invitation to my Uncle&rsquo;s house for their Thanksgiving celebration. That is where my parents were tonight. However, it would involve our going back to Florida, which is not practical for a long weekend holiday. Instead, we went to the Gretchen&rsquo;s parents for dinner. We did not drive a car. We did not fly a plane. We walked. They live next door. We were joined by Gretchen&rsquo;s sister and husband and her daughter and her husband. We started with a little antipasto, chips and dip, and a glass of <a href="http://www.sutterhome.com/html/wine/wz.html" title="White Zinfandel">Sutter Home White Zinfandel</a>. We had turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, black olives, cranberry sauce, and corn on the cob. There were sweet potatoes, but I did not have any. There were four kinds of pie: apple, pecan, pumpkin, and a pumpkin and pecan hybrid. I had pecan.</ins>

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/27/business/27coke.html?ex=1385269200&amp;en=246637c394370cf8&amp;ei=5007&amp;partner=USERLAND">Subway Chain Chooses Coke, Displacing Pepsi</a>: &ldquo;In the latest volley of the cola wars, the Coca-Cola Company announced a deal yesterday to become the exclusive supplier of fountain drinks to Subway Restaurants, wooing the chain away from its partnership with thePepsi unit of PepsiCo.



&ldquo;The deal, which will put Coke fountain drinks in Subway&rsquo;s 20,000 restaurants around the world, will be effective in 2005. Pepsi had been the primary provider of fountain drinks served in the Subway chain since 1988, although Coca-Cola did supply about 15 percent of the restaurants with fountain drinks, bottles and cans.



&ldquo;Subway&rsquo;s decision to shift its business to Coke widens the Coca-Cola Company&rsquo;s lead over its competitors in the fountain business, which includes beverage service in restaurants and movie theaters.



&ldquo;Coke has about 68 percent of the domestic fountain business while Pepsi has 22 percent, according to Beverage Digest, a publication that tracks the industry. The fountain business is the second-largest sales channel for Coke and Pepsi after supermarket sales.&rdquo;

<em>Also via <a href="http://j-walk.com/blog/archives/031124.htm#26-12" title="Soup In The Movies">J-Walk Blog</a>:</em>



<a href="http://www.soupsong.com/imovies.html" title="Index: SOUP AT THE MOVIES">Index: SOUP AT THE MOVIES</a>: &ldquo;It was Jackie Mason who said &lsquo;You know how movies always have sex scenes and the studios say that is because sex is part of life and movies should be lifelike? So why don't movies have more soup scenes? Soup is part of life; no one was ever too tired to have soup.&rsquo;&rdquo;

<em>Via <a href="http://j-walk.com/blog/archives/031124.htm#26-07" title="Forks, Spoons, And More">J-Walk Blog</a>&hellip;</em>



<a href="http://www.calacademy.org/research/anthropology/utensil/" title="The History of Eating Utensils">The History of Eating Utensils</a>: &ldquo;The Anthropology Department at the California Academy of Sciences houses the Rietz Food Technology Collection. Containing approximately 1,300 items, this collection was assembled by Carl Austin Rietz, an inventor and businessman in the food industry. His interest in the industry led him on travels around the world to collect objects used in the production, processing, storage, presentation, preparation, and serving of food.&rdquo;

• 13.342 Gallons
• $1.499/Gallon
• $20.00
• 317.9 Miles
• 23.8 Miles/Gallon
• 6¢/Mile
• 16 Days

My breakfast this morning was a bowl of oatmeal. This mornings weigh-in read 162, so maybe yesterday&rsquo;s was not a fluke. <img src="http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/h/mhl100/images/cool.png" height="18" width="18" alt="Cool" />



<ins datetime="2003-11-26T16:17:00-05:00">Lunch was Panda Buffet&rsquo;s orange chicken on chow mien with hot and sour soup and a small sierra mist. No walk today. <img src="http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/h/mhl100/images/frown.png" height="18" width="18" alt="Frown" /></ins>



<ins datetime="2003-11-26T18:11:00-05:00">Dinner was a Caesar salad with a slice of Gretchen&rsquo;s plain white bread on the side and a <a href="http://www.sierra-nevada.com/beers/celebrationale.html" title="Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale">Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale</a>.</ins>

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/26/dining/26HOWT.html?ei=5007&amp;en=a27005a6f83778d9&amp;ex=1385182800&amp;partner=USERLAND&amp;pagewanted=all&amp;position=">How to Set the Table, and Why: The Short Course</a>: &ldquo;Traditionally, of course, a proper table is covered with a cloth. Tablecloths originated in Rome and represented wealth and dignity during the Medieval period. Damascus in Syria produced the best cloths, called damask, like my family heirloom. Centuries ago, several tablecloths were laid one on top of another, each to be removed after a course. This practice is still followed today in some cultures, in North Africa, for example. Then in early 18th century England, very fine wood tables were meant to be shown off, so doilies, named for D&rsquo;Oyley, a London draper who is said to have invented them, came into use. These in turn became place mats.



&ldquo;On to the plates. The plate is the flat dinner plate, which evolved from wooden trenchers, which were in turn preceded by slabs of stale bread.



&ldquo;The plate is then flanked by knife and tablespoon on the right and usually two forks on the left. Utensils are placed to make picking them up and using them efficient and simple. The knife should be turned so the blade edge is on the left, next to the plate, a consideration dating from when knives were razor sharp. The forks, a larger dinner fork and a smaller salad fork, are placed in order of use from the outside in. In France the forks and spoons are usually turned so the tines and bowls face down&hellip;



&ldquo;To the left of the forks, there can be a small bread and butter plate with a butter knife placed across it near the top. Though butter is never served at a formal dinner or banquet and bread is optional, Thanksgiving is different. Aunt Alice may have made pumpkin bread, or Uncle Brent may have brought biscuits or cornbread, so the bread plate is useful.



&ldquo;For the dessert service these days, a teaspoon with the handle on the right and a dessert or cake fork with the handle on the left are often set horizontally above the dinner plate. The dessert fork and teaspoon can be omitted from the setting and added later, after the main dish has been cleared.



&ldquo;Now, glassware. Two glasses, a larger one for water and a smaller one for wine, should be positioned above the knife, with the wineglass to the right of the water goblet. Stemmed glassware is a sign of refinement. But until well into the 19th century, no glassware was placed directly on the table. It was lined up on a side table and offered by servants, already filled.



&ldquo;A napkin, simply folded &mdash; and for a nice dinner, cloth, never paper &mdash; might go to the left of the forks, but the 1960 edition of Emily Post&rsquo;s Etiquette insists the napkin belongs on the dinner plate itself. And she also noted that fancy foldings are in bad taste. Today, unless lobster is on the menu, the custom of tying a large napkin around one&rsquo;s neck is no longer accepted at a formal dinner, as it was in the 18th century. Napkin rings once held napkins that were reused, but are now merely decorative.&rdquo;

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11582-2003Nov24.html?referrer=email">New Web Site To List Recalls Of Products (washingtonpost.com)</a>: &ldquo;Starting today, a new Web site, <a href="http://www.recalls.gov/" title="Recalls.gov">www.recalls.gov</a>, will offer consumers information from six federal agencies about product recalls involving toys, drugs, food, cosmetics, pesticides, cars and boats. 



&ldquo;The new one-stop site is the work of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Coast Guard, and the Agriculture Department.&rdquo;

I do not normally use named anchors, so I have not encountered this problem, even though my style sheet would have made it possible if I did. Just to be safe and for future use, I am changing my style sheet per the following recommendation:



<a href="http://devedge.netscape.com/viewsource/2003/arbitrary-hover/">Issues Arising From Arbitrary-Element Hover</a>: &ldquo;This brings up the second common problem, which is that named anchors can accept hover styles. Although authors may intend the selector <code>a:hover</code> to apply only to hyperlinks, it will also apply to named anchors, since the selector merely states that any a element which is in a hover state will be styled. In order to avoid this problem, authors should use the combined pseudo-class syntax described by CSS2:

a:link:hover {color: red;}
a:visited:hover {color: maroon;}

Note that, with this syntax, it is possible to styles visited and unvisited links differently when they are hovered. This was not possible with simple <code>a:hover</code>. It does mean, of course, that the selector <code>a:link:hover</code> will only apply to unvisited links, so authors who want the same hover style to apply to both visited and unvisited links should group the two selectors into a single rule.&rdquo;

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11347-2003Nov24.html">Raw Menace (washingtonpost.com)</a>: &ldquo;Epidemiologists in Pennsylvania and three other states where recent scallion outbreaks occurred have ruled out restaurant workers as the cause of infection because in each case restaurant workers who got sick appeared to have contracted the virus at the same time as patrons. Officials speculate that the onions may have been contaminated before they were shipped, by workers or their children who defecated in the fields near where the produce was being harvested. Another possibility is that water used to wash the produce was tainted by sewage.&rdquo;