Congratulations to Julie Rokosky and her new husband Dave; they got married yesterday in San Francisco. We wish we could have been there. Have a wonderful time in Hawaii and Alaska!

The other day I read an article about the website www.RottenNeighbor.com.
Evidently folks with nasty neighbors can pinpoint their location on a map and give a description of their crimes against the neighborhood. I guess folks interested in buying a home in the neighborhood are doing a quick search on RottenNeighbor before the final purchase goes through. No one in my neighborhood was detailed, thankfully. Generally I like our neighborhood although in the past year or so it has suffered a bit. I wouldn't mind a change of scenery. There is one house on our block that Chris and I not-so-fondly refer to as the slum house. They've converted the garage into a bunk house and last time I checked they had ten (yes, ten) cars parked along the street that belonged to various tenants. I don't think I'd list them on RottenNeighbor but they're not my favorite people.

This is going to be a busy weekend for us. Unfortunately, poor Chris is stuck in class all day today (and yesterday) so I'm flying solo (with my trusty sidekick Bailey). I'm canning the last of our apricots today. We have more jam than I know what to do with. Anyone interested in buying delicious jam made with organic apricots? If so, give me a call. Tonight I'm heading up to Long Beach to go to a Chivas (soccer) game. Tomorrow we're going to go for a bike ride so Chris can try out his new bicycle and then we're heading up to Manhattan Beach for the 47th Annual Manhattan Beach Grand Prix (bike race) hosted by Rock Racing. It should be fun. I was hoping that the Garmin-Chipotle Team was going to make an appearance but evidently they'll be racing the Pittsburg Criterium. I bet they're also gearing up for the 2008 Tour de France which starts July 5th.

Weekend Activities

I'm still recuperating a bit from this nasty cold so we took it pretty easy today. Plus, it's really hot out (100 degrees) and I turn into a slug in that kind of weather. Anyway, we headed over to La Mirada to check out a criterium bike race. We also saw a Frisbee dog competition which was pretty fun.

I wish Bailey would do this...but no. He looks at it, might pick it up once or twice and then the game is over. Now, if I was throwing live ducks, on the other hand, that would be an entirely different story. That guy is a sucker for chasing things that quack.

The bike race. This was the pro class. We also saw the masters and women's racing. Wow, those women were ripped. It was awesome.

FYI: Yes, that is my thumb in the picture and no, that is not me yelling "Keep It Sexy". That honor belongs to some bimbo Rock Racing Groupie. Nice timing sweetie, thanks. Chris and I were wondering exactly what "keep it sexy" was supposed to convey. Keep up the good work, maybe? Frankly, 'keeping it sexy' would't be my highest priority when spending 80 minutes racing around a 2-mile track in 105 degree weather. Maybe "hang on for dear life and don't pass out' would be a better goal.

The Tale of the Smashed Spider

So we had this thing in Costa Rica: every time you put your boots on, you had to turn them upside down and give the soles a couple hearty whacks. Any critters (snakes in particular) would then fall out and you could put your boots on, worry free. I should have headed this advice in Belize when putting on my shorts one day as I discovered that a rather largish frog had previously taken up residence. He wasn't the only one hopping around. And I should have followed those same procedures today when putting on my running shoes. Instead, I felt something wet sticking to the bottom of my sock and this is what I discovered when I pulled off my shoe. YUCK. Good thing I was wearing socks and good thing it wasn't a black widow.

I typically don't mind spiders and I'm grateful to the bug-consuming services that they provide. However, a smushed spider in my shoes gives me the heebie jeebies. I can't explain why. I know, it's not rational.

Photo 'O the Day

Photo of the day
(the pumpkin plants that are no longer happily growing in my garden)

The Clay Warriors

We went to the Bowers Museum of Cultural Arts in Santa Ana this evening to check out their exhibit of clay figures that were uncovered in China in the 1970s.

From Wiki:

The Terracotta WARRIORS are the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of Shi Huang Di the First Emperor of China. The terracotta figures, dating from 210 BC, were discovered in 1974 by several local farmers near Xi'an, Shaanxi province, China near the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor. The figures vary in height, according to their role, the tallest being the Generals. The figures include warriors, chariots, horses, officials, acrobats, strongmen, and musicians. Current estimates are that in the three pits containing the Terracotta Army there were over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which are still buried in the pits.
Read the entire wiki article here.

Pictures from Bowers Museum and Wikipedia.

The Great Bread Fiasco

I've been meaning to try my hand at bread making after reading Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. So yesterday morning I gave it a go.

Initially, things were looking good. I used the dough hook to kneed the bread for a while and then formed them into loaves. The only indicator that things might be a little wacky was that they took a while to rise. I was taking a chance by using yeast that was slightly past its prime. Well, let's just say that things didn't really go according to plan. My loaves were hard as a rock...

And incredibly flat.

I tried pawning them off on Bailey...

And that worked for about 10 seconds...

Before he realized his error.

They did make good Frisbees though.

So this morning I decided to have another go-round. I used fresh yeast this time.

So far, so good.

Nicely rising

Ready for the oven.

Hallelujah!! We have edible bread!!

Oh, it's even three-dimensional, too.

The Problem

so, we have a problem: critters are eating my apricots. The very same apricots that I plan on turning into delicious jam in a few scant weeks. The ground is littered with partially eaten fruit. Normally, I wouldn't have an issue with this. You know: one for the blackbird, one for the crow, one for the cutworm and one to grow. However, I was home sick today and I had a chance to see first hand the rate at which my precious apricots are being devoured. I had some very choice words for some birds today and I may have hurled a few (ok, a lot) of semi-demolished apricots at the avian pirates. I need those apricots. Yes, I'm counting my chickens before they hatch. It wouldn't be so bad if they ate the entire fruit but no, they eat maybe a quarter of it before it falls to the ground, discarded. Oh, the injustice. I'm usually not one to take the side of those farmers that rely on throughly dousing their crops in pesticides, but MAN, I feel their pain and I can understand their reasoning. I just gotta keep telling myself: Organic is good! (and a freakin pain in the neck).

Noteworthy Blogs

Every now and again Blogger comes up with some Blogs of Note. This time they had a really great one: Crunchy Chicken and Crunchy Chicken Cooks. Check 'em out. And no, they're not related to backyard clucking chickens. You'll just have to click on them to obtain more information.

Paging Uncle Bill and Karin

We're shaping up to have a good crop of apricots this year; unless the birds clean us out first.

I have a couple volunteers in my vegetable garden. Can either of you identify them? They probably came from the lower layer of compost.

Gardening Blog

I found this gardening blog courtesy of this NYT article. Lovely.

CSA

I've been pondering some food changes in our house: namely the thought of obtaining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) subscription. Local Harvest is a good website for finding CSAs, farmers markets, and grocery co-ops. It's a national database so you can find markets near your home too. :)

Big Man on Campus

Here's the picture from Bailey's big day at work a while back. I lost him temporarily only to discover him relaxing in Mindy's office chair. Life is good.

Bike to Work Month

I worked out the kinks in blogger so these tables should enlarge when you give them a double click with the mouse. Here are the overall miles by team. I was actually off by a significant figure when I stated that Papa's team beat the other team by 85 miles. 900 miles would be a better estimate.
Here are the team stats for individual Sterna riders. Totals (by month) are down at the bottom. Check out the column for T. Dorrance. Pretty nifty, eh?!And lastly, we have the riders ranked by miles peddled. One crazy biker (P. Q. Buffington) logged almost 1,500 miles by himself. By my count, seven sterna riders were in the top 20.

Most of America's populace think it improper to spank children. The other
day I was talking to one of my younger buddies about methods used to
discipline children. We talked about "time outs", grounding, holding back "rewards" until the child displayed desired behavior etc. One of the things we discussed was the act of spanking and my friend explained that no, he does not spank any of his children.

He explained that what he does is to take the misbehaving child out for a
ride in the car and talk. He said that usually this works and that the
child calms down fairly quickly and really doesn't take too much time.

By removing the child, in this case his son, from the immediate situation
and providing a change of scenery, the child is allowed to focus on
something different. Once the child has the opportunity to change
perspective, things get better quickly and the child has better
understanding of his place within the family and begins to understand the
family's concept of acceptable behavior.

He kindly shared a picture of the process which I share with you now.