Doug's Project 365

The mens room at my workplace has an interesting method for making sure everyone gets their way.

Gene’s Chinese Flatbread near my office is a bit of a darling of the Boston food scene right now, and for good reason: their food is unusual, delicious, and cheap. It’s a tiny little cash-only storefront widely known for their hand-pulled noodles. I’ve been going there for almost a year and had yet to get the eponymous lamb-stuffed flatbread. I remedied that today (the Millennium Falcon looking thing on the left) along with a bowl of their plain hand-pulled noodles, served with spices and a ridiculous quantity of minced garlic. The flatbread was good, but does not hold a candle to the noodles.

I like to think that there is an alternate universe somewhere, where these birds undergo two metamorphoses daily, becoming morning doves overnight and evening doves by late afternoon. But in our universe, there’s an extra ‘u’ in the name and so the birds look the same throughout the day.

Our cherry tree is putting on its best show in years.

I have cooked some skinny asparagus in my day but this is ridiculous.

For Earth Day this year I melted down some old candle wax — stub ends, burnt-out votives, broken candles — and re-cast into new votives. You can see the three on the left still in the molds, a spool of wick, and the old tomato can I use to melt the wax.

The Salty Pig is a meat-centric restaurant and they have classic Far Side comics in the restrooms. Some have been edited.

In the family photo digitization project that I am undertaking, most of the B&W prints are yellowed, faded, or both, as you might expect. What surprised me, though, is how many of them have very high contrast — so much contrast that important detail and texture is not visible. I am amazed to find that I can restore this detail with modern technology. In this photo (which is on the good side of typical), notice the improved texture in my aunt’s dress and my dad’s shirt & face, and how much clarity is restored to the line of fish.

I’m making oxtail stew today, as befits the weather. As one does in, you know, mid-April.