no simple highway

09:52 am - because I know you've always been wondering this

What happens when a tornado hits a freight train? As always, Youtube has the answer.

03:47 pm - fermentation

fermentation, originally uploaded by chipo2.

Clockwise from upper left: sourdough starter, basic sourdough, Poilâne (whole wheat sourdough), pumpernickel sourdough. I think I need more bowls.

The pumpernickel gets baked tonight; the other two tomorrow.

04:37 pm

Loading the small boy in the trailer and riding out the Minuteman Bikeway to Trader Joe's is an excellent way to go grocery shopping. Exercise and inexpensive groceries; what's not to like?

mood: refreshed

10:55 pm - things I have learned from being a father

One tends find oneself going into a lot of bizarre detail when explaining to a bright, geeky, inquisitive four-year-old how astronauts go potty.

01:12 pm - Haynes Manual for Apollo 11

deguspice, call your office.

01:51 pm - Of potential interest to Boston-area (and elsewhere) software developers

The excellent and highly-recommended developers' community site StackOverflow is holding a series of one-day developers' conferences, called StackOverflow DevDays, and they just announced one in Boston (among several other cities). It's October 7th; they haven't announced exactly where.

Tickets are $99 for the one-day event, and there's only 300 of them. So if this sounds interesting, register very soon.

ETA: I'm going, in case that affects your decision one way or the other.

mood: working

02:55 pm - foxtrot, whiskey tango?!

Baby's First Coffeemaker!

01:19 pm - PSA

Pancakes are thoroughly underrated as an evening meal.

09:26 pm - sourdough 101

Several people I gave starter to have asked for care & feeding instructions and/or recipes, so here you are. ( really long )

09:45 pm - Sourdough starter, free to good home

I have a ton of extra sourdough starter that I'd rather not throw away. It makes yummy bread. Anyone want some?

08:49 am - I've got a bike

I've got a bike, originally uploaded by chipo2.

Benjamin proudly shows off his new (to him) wheels. Many thanks to Liam W. for passing along his old bike.

11:23 am - PSA: RealAge.com a front for Big Pharma

Per the New York Times, it turns out that the popular health site RealAge.com happily sells all the information you give it to drug companies so they can send you spam.

10:02 pm - bread blogging

I've been experimenting with sourdough breads lately, with some success. Most recently I took my usual recipe and added rosemary and sautéed onions to it.


I thought I'd put in too much rosemary, but it turned out to be exactly the right amount, and I could have gone heavier on the onions. Not much sourdough flavor, but that's because I got a late start and had to spike it with yeast to get a faster rise. Need to do that one again. I also want to try substituting some whole-wheat flour for some of the bread flour.

Made bagels last week for a pancake breakfast at Benjamin's preschool. That was a grand success. It turns out that it's quite easy to bake these off on the morning you need them, as they rise overnight in the fridge, and I can preheat the oven and put the big stock pot on to boil right before getting in the shower. After I'm showered and dressed, boiling and baking takes half an hour. People seem to think that bagels are this complicated thing; they're actually ridiculously easy.

11:48 am - Looking for a kid's bike

I have a 4-year-old who is rapidly outgrowing his tricycle. Anyone have a kid's bike, 12" or 16" wheels, that they're willing to let go of at a reasonable price?

10:20 am - I am the egg-man

I'm going to be at Diesel tonight with 3 dozen eggs, relayed from goddessfarmer via chocorua. $3/dozen, sliding scale. Sing out if you want one.

03:27 pm - homeownership PSA

An NSTAR Home Heating Protection Plan can be a very useful thing.

But only if you remember you have it.

Fortunately, gosling did remember in time for us to cancel on the random heating contractor I called. It was a cold night, but the boiler is now fixed.

09:52 pm - New skis FTW

On Thursday, I finally managed to get up to Cannon and try out my new skis. I had expected them to be better than my old tired boards, but I was still completely astonished at what a difference they made. I found myself blasting down trails that previously I would have struggled down. Cannon had gotten a few inches of snow the previous night, along with a bit of wind to blow it around, so conditions were pretty variable; in many places you had 4"-deep powder alternating with glare ice. The new skis just carved through all of it with poise and aplomb. I had thought that I didn't like skiing powder; it turns out that the problem was that my old skis were completely useless in it. I wasn't even having to stop to rest my achy legs on strenuous runs, which I think came from not having to fight my skis the whole way down. Sometimes the problem really is the tools.

My father's boots worked fine too. They felt a little tighter in the calves than I'd like, but it's nothing a competent boot fitter couldn't handle.

Now, the one downside to this nice ski day (other than I should have worn the polarfleece pants I got for Christmas) was that I was skiing solo. Riding up a lift by myself, I thought "this is completely stupid; I have easily a dozen friends who ski or snowboard". So if you're one of them and would be interested in the occasional weekend day trip, drop me a line here.

11:28 pm - so, about that job hunt thing...

I start at Sandstorm Enterprises on Monday, as a software engineer.

mood: relieved

12:46 pm - Laid off.

As of today, Permabit Technology Corp. is no longer in need of my services. (Yes, they were nicer about it than that.)

So, needless to say, I'm in the market. I'll have an updated resume posted as soon as I, er, update it. If anyone's looking for a software engineer with solid C++, Java and Perl skills and experience in QA automation, please to be letting me know.

09:47 am - CPSI Act could put a lot of small (and large) domestic manufacturers out of business

weegoddess, you should read this.

In the wake of the well-justified outrage over lead-tainted toys from China, Congress passed the Children's Product Safety Improvement Act, which, while well-intentioned, has the potential to put a lot of domestic manufacturers, large and small, out of business, due to the cost of the required testing on finished products (as opposed to raw materials). More on this here and here.

11:33 pm - my little boy, growing up so fast... *sniff*

Today Benjamin got his very first credit card offer in the mail.

(and people wonder why the economy's in trouble.)

04:22 pm - completely unrelated to the election

So one of my projects this past month was buying a new set of skis. ( this got complicated )

10:48 pm

OH, PA, NM and NH in the bag. I hear the fat lady warming up backstage.

Spent my birthday in Nashua NH gettin' out the vote. Got to the meeting place in Porter Square only to find that they had way more drivers than passengers, so eventually I ended up putting the car back at home and riding up with someone else. (I voted absentee on Friday so I wouldn't have to do so before heading to NH today.)

First round of canvassing was in a vary large (ex-giant mill) apartment building; we canvassed via the intercom for a while until someone let us in. Then we covered about 2 floors before someone else threw us out, so we finished our list via the intercom again.

Second round, with a different partner, we did the length of a street in what was definitely not the high-rent district of Nashua. Everyone on our list who we managed to talk to had already voted, but we persuaded a couple of other folks to vote, including one guy who had never voted. Fortunately, NH allows same-day registration. NH also allows convicted felons to vote, but the two convicted felons we talked to didn't know that.

Took a break at the Martha's Exchange brewpub (highly recommended if you're in Nashua), and then headed out with another group (also from Somerville) to go stand out with signs, on a main drag adjacent to a polling place. Got a lot of honks and waves and only a few thumbs-downs or shouted obscenities. There was one lonely woman on the other corner with McCain/Palin and Sununu signs, and four of us with Obama/Biden and Shaheen signs. We got joined by a local woman and a friend of hers' kids (maybe 12 and 14), both of whom were immensely enthusiastic about Obama. Turned out their mother is a McCain supporter.

Hmmm, VA is looking good too.

It got cold and dark and the drivers could no longer see us well (note to the Obama campaign: for 2012, invest in some reflective signs), so we packed it in and I caught a ride back to Somerville with them, listening to NPR being irritatingly fair and balanced.

As I finish this post, the networks have just called the whole shebang for Obama.

10:39 pm - Les Mizbarack!

One wouldn't think the staff at Barack Obama's campaign headquarters had an excess of time on their hands these days. But:

01:36 pm - Please donate to defeat CA proposition 8!

I don't ordinarily do this, but in case folks hadn't heard, there is serious danger that CA Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage, may pass, which would set the cause of marriage equality back decades. The religious right is pouring everything they have into this, and we need to do the same. If you can spare it, I urge you to go to No On Prop. 8 and make a donation. They're trying to raise $3 million by midnight.

10:26 pm - Barack Obama is awesome

I mean, I already liked the guy, but this just takes the cake. Make that the entire bakery.

05:28 pm - I have no words

09:02 am - Article on financial crisis

This [dailykos.com] is the best article I've seen yet on the origins of the current financial crisis.

07:33 pm - borrow angle grinder?

Anyone (anyone local to Boston, that is) have an angle grinder I can borrow for a day or so?

10:39 pm - that picture meme

1. Take a picture of yourself right now.
2. Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair...just take a picture.
3. Post that picture with NO editing. [well, except for image size]
4. Post these instructions with your picture.

09:30 pm - observation from this afternoon

A train should not leave a wake. Just sayin'.

11:06 pm - Benjamin takes Manhattan, maybe

What are good, public-transit-accessible things to do in New York City with a bright 3½-year-old? The Bronx Zoo is already on the list.

10:01 am - McCain supports Obama!

From the obama_2008 community: a surprising sticker.

10:01 am - Benjamin learns about powers of two

Benjamin, looking at his fingers: "What's one and one make?"
Me: "Two."
"What's two and two make?"
"Four."
"What's four and four make?"
"Eight."
"What's eight and eight make?"
"Sixteen."
"What's sixteen and sixteen make?"
"Thirty-two."
"What's thirty-two and thirty-two make?"
"Sixty-four."
"What's sixty-four and sixty-four make?"
"One hundred and twenty-eight."
"What's one hundred and twenty-eight and one hundred and twenty-eight make?"
"Two hundred and fifty-six."
"What's two hundred and fifty-six and two hundred and fifty-six make?"
"Five hundred and twelve."
"What's five hundred and twelve and five hundred and twelve make?"
"One thousand and twenty-four."
"What's one thousand and twenty-four and one thousand and twenty-four make?"
"Two thousand and forty-eight."
"What's two thousand and forty-eight and two thousand and forty-eight make?"
"Four thousand and ninety-six."
"What's four thousand and... I lost track."

A few minutes later, we went through it again, and this time he got up to "What's eight thousand one hundred and ninety-two and eight thousand one hundred and ninety-two make"? before I had to stop and figure it out. Fortunately, he only got another step further before "What's thirty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight and thirty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight make?" turned out to be too long to say.

01:47 pm - the people I have to work with

Coworker: "Huh, they found the world's oldest joke, from 1900 BC in Sumeria."
Other coworker: "Two guys walk into a ziggurat..."

07:53 am - signal-boosting for gosling

If you support a mother's right to breastfeed in public, please send a cute baby photo to the MA Speaker Of The House.
( no, that's not a non sequitur )

06:56 am - Green Line extension station designs

The proposed station designs for the Green Line extension to Somerville and Medford have been posted on the project website, here. They're all PDFs. It looks like the stations are all going to be attended stations with fare gates, instead of being pay-on-board like most of the other Green Line surface stops.

01:20 pm

Happy Father's Day to all of the fathers out there!

01:26 pm - most awesome house ever

Well, most awesome apartment ever, actually. New York family gets their 4200sf 5th Ave digs redone and the architect fills it with little puzzles and secret compartments. New York Times article here.

02:30 pm - Anyone have an old iron?

I find myself in need of an old iron, and was wondering if anyone had one to give or lend. I'm going to use it for applying wood edgebanding, so you don't want to lend it to me if you plan on using it on clothes afterwards.

07:49 pm - adventures in commuting

This afternoon I headed out of work in the lull between the storms to catch my usual 80 bus home. Got to Lechmere only to find out that the buses were delayed due to flooding.

So I got on the Green Line and headed for Park Street, intending to catch the Red Line there and go to Davis. I was sitting up front, where I could hear lots of chatter on the radio about inbound trains turning at Government Center, and sure enough, when we got to North Station, the driver announced that Park Street was closed due to an (unspecified) emergency. She didn't know if the Red Line station was closed too, so I bolted across the platform to the inbound Orange Line train that was conveniently sitting there, thinking I could get on the Red Line at Downtown Crossing.

Got off at Downtown Crossing, and the station was full of electrical-fire-smelling smoke and the fire alarms were going off. So that's what they meant by an emergency. They have these nice new LED message signs in the stations,and instead of saying something useful like "This station is being evacuated due to an electrical fire in the Red Line tunnel", which was in fact the case, they said "There is no smoking on MBTA vehicles and platforms". I really do think that the T has this deep-seated horror of communicating useful information to its passengers in a timely fashion. So anyway, they were in the process of evacuating Downtown Crossing and Park Street, so we all trooped up to the exit, where the roll-up gate was down— but it was promptly opened; they were using it to keep people from going in.

Found Washington Street jammed to the gills with fire apparatus. Someone said something about shuttle buses, but that's a guaranteed rolling disaster even if they do manage to scrape up enough buses and drivers on short notice, so I walked north to State as the heavens began to open up. State was full of smoke too, and the Orange Line train that was at the southbound platform announced that it was not stopping at Downtown Crossing. Waited for a northbound train and got on it, and when it came out of the tunnel at Community College, it was raining cats and dogselephants and rhinoceroses. Fortunately, the Sullivan Square station is well sheltered under the tender embrace of I-93, so I barely needed to open my umbrella to get on the 89 bus that took me home. In the 5-minute interval between when I got on the bus and when it actually left, the rain stopped and the sun came out.

What I should have done, of course, is gotten on a northbound Orange Line train at North Station in the first place.

What I REALLY should have done, of course, is stayed on the Green Line train to Government Center, in order to get to ride around the Brattle Loop, which is the track they use for turning inbound trains around there. Oh well.

09:23 pm - pimping my work

Here's the piece I've been working on for the Emperor Norton's Stationary Marching Band benefit auction:
( cut for your pleasure )

10:55 am - This is the coolest thing ever

The International Children's Digital Library is an online repository of hundreds of digitized children's books, old and new, in many different languages.

One of the coolest things about it is the search interface, which is designed to be usable by young children, but is a study in good UI design even for grown-ups. It makes it easy to find something you don't quite remember, e.g. "a book about dinosaurs with a blue cover".

11:27 am - not skiing

The plan was that I would be skiing right now, but after getting about halfway there in progressively-worse road conditions, I called Cannon's ski conditions line (a number, incidentally, that I have had memorized since I was 7) to find out that they were closed due to high winds.

So I ended up taking a half-day from work to drive for three hours in pouring rain and glare ice. Fun and excitement.

10:57 am - Oscar Meyer Wienermobile spins out in PA; drivers "none the wurst for wear"

Someone had way too much fun with this article.

01:25 pm - Lawrence Lessig on why he supports Obama

Lawrence Lessig has posted a video making a remarkably compelling case for Barack Obama, on grounds of integrity and moral courage. It's here; there's a transcript there too.

05:33 pm - Green Line station workshop notes

Last week I went to the station workshop for the Ball Square and Lowell Street stations on the Green Line extension. I sent the following report to the STEP mailing list, but it occurred to me it might be of interest to my loyal readership here. :-)
( long and full of transit geekery )

11:00 am - Done.

They gave both Benjamin and I "I Voted" stickers. Bet he gets another one when gosling takes him to vote. I was amused that the Democratic ballot had a full slate of state and ward committee candidates, and the Republican ballot had none (and the "Working Families", whoever they are, ballot had no candidates at all).

To blather further about why I chose as I did, a lot of people have pointed to Clinton's better health care plan as a reason to vote for her. I don't like Obama's plan very much, but I don't like Clinton's all that much either. Of course, the plan I'd like to see would have the entire health insurance industry down on the head of any candidate who proposed it.

I also really, really don't like Clinton's stance on the war. She still claims that voting for the war was the right thing to do. It bespeaks a continued affliction with the belief that Democrats have to cower in fear of being tagged as "soft on terrorism" by the Republicans, which is part of why we're in this mess in the first place.

10:28 pm - More on Obama

Here are a couple of articles I was pointed to tonight.

Judge Him By His Laws, from the Washington Post, details some of Obama's impressive achievements in the IL state Senate.

Goodbye to All That: Why Obama Matters, by Andrew Sullivan in The Nation, details the sources of the toxic tone of current American politics (fundamental divides in the Baby Boom generation left over from the Vietnam War) and describes why Obama can bring us past that and Clinton can't.

04:04 pm - Primary thoughts

Several people on my friends list are trying to figure out who to vote for tomorrow, so I thought I'd share an email I sent to my sister last night:

I've been leaning toward Obama all along, sort of undecided between him and Edwards, but with Edwards out of the race I'm leaning further. :-) There are things about Obama I don't like; he's actually been much more centrist a Senator than he was a state senator, and (as my retired-economist-and- Hillary-fan mother-in-law pointed out to me) his economic proposals are actually fairly conservative. I'm also not entirely convinced that his grand, sweeping vision will survive intact when it runs up against Washington politics, having seen what happened to Governor Patrick (though Obama has the advantage of actually having been a politician for a while already).

Having said all that, Obama has the potential to be an inspiring and transformative president, and Clinton flat-out doesn't. A Clinton presidency will be the late 90's all over again (presumably minus the hanky-panky in the Oval Office), even with the Republicans in the minority. So while I haven't drunk the Obama Kool-Aid, I'm certainly voting for him, and really hope he can pull off what he says he can.