Month: December 2001

Don’t ask me about claptrap…

Thing #2: The moon in the mountains of Buncombe County, North Carolina, outside Asheville, is bright enough to walk by.

Thing #3: Buncombe County is the origin of the word “bunkum,” or “bunk.” Apparently Felix Walker, the representative from Buncombe County, started it in the US Congress by making a longwinded speech for show to his constituents while he was on the House floor. This may give you some perspective on some of the things written on the pages of webloggers. We tend to make a lot of speeches for Buncombe. 🙂

Truth hurts.

I’m really playing catch-up here, looking over my blog for the last three weeks (which have been pretty crazy) and going back to highlight things that have happened that I haven’t written about.
Tim Jarrett or Jim Nabors? You decide. Nabors photo from http://www.sa.ua.edu/osm/corolla/29.html.Thing #1: The MIT Sloan talent show. The show concluded with a slide show of “Separated at Birth” headshots. It was pretty funny, especially the one of yours truly and Jim Nabors. Okay, so I look a little like the guy. The real irony is that he had a heck of a singing voice too.

women musicians

A friend and I have been discussing lately how hard it is to sort through all the mess to find really good music by women artists. I decided to put my money where my mouth is and pull cds out of my collection that feature women singers/songwriters. The list is here. A few notes: Lauryn Hill is missing, but only because Tim borrowed my cd. I’ve left out groups such as the Cowboy Junkies that only have a female lead singer, but included groups such as Concrete Blonde when that singer does most of the songwriting. I was pleasantly surprised; I’ve got more than I thought I did, although it’s still not a big enough proportion of my collection. I offer this list (complete with web sites) as a starter’s list for the uninitiated.

Yo, Ashcroft

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the rights of the people by the gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” -James Madison, fourth US president (1751-1836)

Girlfriends and dressing

Happiness = sharing shellfish and wine with my best girlfriends. They, along with mucho crusty bread, a huge salad, and way too many old jokes, conspired to make Friday one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time. Many, many thanks to Christina, Jackie, Steph and Debbie (as well as Jack’s golden, Millie) for putting up with what was basically a selfish impulse of mine to have as many of my girlfriends together under one roof as possible (we missed you, Pam and Mary). And thanks as well to Guido (no lie), our waiter at lunch on Saturday, for one of the more surreal dining experiences I’ve ever had. You know when the waiter says, “I want to bask in your radiance” that something loopy is going on.

Hey Stiz, here’s that salad dressing recipe you asked for: coat the greens in olive oil till they’re shiny. Combine balsamic vinegar with lemon and lime juice, sugar, salt, pepper and thyme to taste. Shake it all up and pour over the greens just before you serve. Credit where credit’s due: Tim’s mother-in-law, Ramona Lucadamo, taught me how to make it.

There was more to my weekend, but I’ll have to tell you about it later. Dinner’s ready! Man, I love it when Debbie cooks…

Radio? What’s a radio?

I just found this hommage a radio in Doc Searls’ weblog (I’m only a day late. Sue me, I was in Appalachia). It’s fascinating, except that it’s a nostalgia that I can’t share. I think the equivalent nostalgia for my generation (born in 1972) would have to be personal computers. Maybe video game consoles. Feelin’ old yet, Doc? 🙂

First PC I ever spent any hands-on time with? Probably an Apple IIe (Apple ][e?), or maybe our family friend’s Atari 800. First family computer–Apple //c. First computer of my very own? Mac SE/30. That was only two Macs ago for me. They last a long time…

Sammiches!

My favorite thing on the planet (today): sammiches made with leftover Christmas ham. So good, your tongue’ll beat your brains out. And yes, the technical term is “sammiches”.

Je suis non blog

Just letting everyone know that at least one of the Jarretts is back at the helm. Some of us have to work, instead of being glued to (admittedly really cool) geek toys while eating truckloads of yummy food. ‘K, so I’m a little grumpy at being back at the office. It was nice to be away from computers and TV and radio for 5 days. Really nice. See Tim’s entry for a record of most of what we did. I’ll fill in around the edges when work lets me up for air. And for the record, homecomings suck if you live on a farm where the pipes freeze in the winter. Hopefully they’ll be thawed enough so I can shower when I get home tonight. Grumpy grumpy…

Groaning from the griddle…

Big breakfast at my uncle’s this morning. Guests included an old chief-of-police friend from Louisiana who couldn’t have been more Cajun if he tried. Meal included country ham, country sausage, and pork tenderloins together with the eggs, grits, creamed corn, cooked apples and biscuits. I don’t think my mother-in-law was quite ready for the sheer volume of food. Then again, I don’t think I was quite ready for the sheer volume of food.

Christmas update

Sorry for the long outage. It’s difficult finding a way to slip away and blog when you’re in a house with six other people over the holidays. A new story will catch you up on what I’ve been doing. Highlights include: the stupidity of flying the Saturday before Christmas; dinner for ten with chucker, 100-meter freestyle sightreading, and “I’m a rocker”… with an iPod.

Christmas Catch-Up

I think this is the longest bloggus interruptus I’ve had in a while. Sue me; I was with family. I did make some notes along the way, though…

Saturday, December 22: So this is what holiday travel is like in the Brave New World. We had a 7:15 flight leaving Boston on the Saturday before Christmas. We bravely decided to take the train to the airport. Never mind that the first one left our station at 5:30 am, less than two hours before. Ah, the bravery of ignorance.

Still, we were lucky. After waiting the better part of an hour in line, they had pity on all of us who hadn’t planned adequately and pulled us to the front of the line. Then we got to jump in the fast line for the security screening. There was that last line at the gate for a seat (if they weren’t handing out seat assignments at check-in, why was the line so backed up?), but then we were on the plane.

I think, though, that our luck is about to end. We just heard from the flight attendant that we’re landing at A terminal in Atlanta but have our connecting flight in C terminal. Given that we have half an hour to make the connection, that’s akin to a death sentence–or at least an invitation to reprise Run Lola Run. But fortunately we made it OK–they haven’t set up security checkpoints between the terminals yet. When we got in, we found out we had narrowly missed meeting the whacko who tried to give himself a hotfoot with a shoeful of plastic explosives and had caused his plane to make a forced landing at Logan. Should be a lot of fun when we get back on Saturday.

Sunday, December 23: Lisa and I cook dinner for ten, with dancing. We make a small dent in my uncle’s game collection, cooking some quail (both in risotto and grilled), some chucker (a large bird in the pigeon family), and some venison. Much merriment. Much sleep thereafter.

Monday, December 24: A last minute discovery: My dad’s beige G3 has no USB ports. This is a problem as we have bought him a scanner with a USB connection. A quick trip to Best Buy later, we have the problem in hand. At night, I do a quick read through the service music so I can sing with my dad at Christmas Eve services. I later joke that it’s the first 100-meter freestyle sightreading exhibition I’ve done. Good music–the director, Eric, is a great musician and has impeccable taste (this is not to be taken for granted in church music).

Tuesday, December 25: Christmas starts with a light breakfast and family presents. In addition to the scanner for Dad, we took up a collection so he can buy a barbecue grill for the new house. Mom got a nice tennis bracelet, gold with diamonds (well done, Dad!). I got a Diesel Sweeties t-shirt (“I’m a rocker. I rock out”), the Peanuts art collection, and from my wife, an iPod. They are killer little toys. Christmas dinner was unusual: a “fresh” (uncured) ham, brined in Coca-Cola and spices and baked. Afterwards settling back to digest in peace. I was able to watch my new DVD (Blazing Saddles) on my laptop, but only with much difficulty. I don’t know whether the DVD was flawed or if my player is having problems, but I finally settled on a sequence of playing a CD in the drive first, then putting another DVD in, then putting the Blazing Saddles DVD in before it would work.

This is a long update…

Updates: Mac OS X 10.1.2 (build 5P48) is out. That’s a long download over a modem. Features include Applescript 1.8, so I’m going to go test Manila Envelope to see how it works with the changes.