October, 2015

Lis and I went up to Portland, ME this weekend to see some friends. Here is the Time and Temperature Building in downtown, which displays the eponymous information on a large sign on its roof.  Note: I will not be adding a similar display to the top of any of my roofs anytime soon.

Today marks my last train commute for the season. It’s getting too dark for me to bike home from the train in traffic, and after last winter I don’t trust the T, so it’s back to the car for me.  I’ll pick it back up again in the spring.

I am having a last long drink of the season on this abnormally warm fall day. This one is like a planter’s punch, using up citrus from the fridge and rum from the liquor cabinet, but with fall spices.

We light little votive candles for dinner most nights. I like to play with the wax and push it inwards so the candle burns more evenly. We wondered if it really makes a difference, so for this last pair of candles I did not touch the candle on the right at all. It burned out this evening. I’d say the other one — the one I do play with — is only about 2/3 of the way through.

The pressure cooker revolutionized cooking for my mom’s generation of home cooks in a similar way that sous vide has revolutionized mine: a technological means to remove some of the labor and attention needed to get certain results. It’s still a very useful tool, especially this time of year. This evening it contains tomorrow night’s pea soup.

This weekend, I implemented a weather beacon based on the one in Boston’s Berkeley Building, a.k.a. the “Old Hancock Building”, and the subject of this famous rhyme:

Steady view, clear view
Flashing blue, clouds due
Steady red, rain ahead
Flashing red, snow instead

I installed a color-controllable light inside the cupola on top of our garage, and wrote some software to retrieve weather information and control the light.

Charcoal grilling this time of year means I’m cooking after dark. Which is fine — I have the technology. But it also shows me just how stupid hot the charcoal gets in the chimney. The purple spots on the sides of the chimney here on this cellphone pic were, to the eye, the deep, malevolent red of glowing steel.

No, that’s not an unnaturally small pan: those are the widest strips of bacon I’ve ever seen.

Chipmunks had dug a tunnel under our brick patio, causing it to collapse where they left bricks unsupported. This morning’s project: lift some bricks and fill in the voids with sand. I filled the deeper tunnel to their actual burrow (at bottom left) with mortar; I hope they get the message.

Same as the old coat.

I bought a new winter coat today (on the left). Although it looks very similar to the old, it’s a different brand and has technical features that will make it superior for skiing.  My ski buddies will be happy to not have to get used to a new look for me.