Bacon

Mmmm...  Move over eggs.  Bacon just got a new best friend.  Fudge.

~ Homer Simpson

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Me:  So, Elizabeth, are you going to become vegetarian or vegan like Maddie and your mom?

E:  Nope.

Me:  Why not?

E:  Uh, BACON.  Duh.

Sauerkraut

Sauerkraut is tolerant, for it seems to be a well of contradictions. Not that it would preach a gastronomic neutrality that would endure all heresies. It rejects dogmatism and approves of individual tastes. It forms a marvelous combination with numerous spices, odors, or spirits: juniper berries, coriander seeds, peppercorns, cranberries, Reinette apples, stock, and wine; it even welcomes flakes of yeast or leftover Gruyère since it accepts being prepared au gratin. Its flavor sustains various potato dishes: boiled in their skins, crisps (potato chips), braised, sautéed, grilled, or simply cooked in water. It adopts many sorts of fat, including lard, butter, goose fat, or roast dripping. The variety of meats to which it consents is infinite: sausages of all kinds, such as knackwurst, white sausage, Lorraine, Montbeliard, chipolata, black pudding, hams, smoked or salted bacon, quenelles, pickled and smoked pork, goose, pheasant, etc. It makes excuses for red wine, although it has a weakness for beer and lets itself be spoilt by white wine. Each stomach may find its own happiness in it.

~ Julien Freund

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Just for the record, this is FRANK'S Kraut Juice.  So you don't get it confused with any of the other, lesser-quality kraut juices.  Also, don't get it confused with orange juice.  Seriously.  That's a mistake and a half.

Kids

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: 

"I'm with you kid.  Let's go."

~ Maya Angelou

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I love photography.  You may have surmised that.  On a recent trip to Davis, CA, I had a chance to meet Jordan.  I believe I have inspired in him a love of photography, as well.

We were driving to the ocean and I was taking some photos with my camera.  Jordan was good, but maybe a little bored on the car trip.  So I gave him my phone and showed him how to use the camera on it.  He took about 391 photos of the back of the seat in front of him.

I learned a number of things from this.

1. Kids take to technology easily, quickly, and comfortably.
2. If you let them use your technology once, they will want to use it again.  And again.  And always.
3. The view from the back seat of a minivan - even a "swagger wagon" - is mostly boring.
4. Photography is awesome. 

Okay, I already knew that last one.  It just got reiterated to me.

Ideas

He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.

~ Abraham Lincoln

- - - - -

So before there were lightbulbs, when someone had a good idea, did people capture it artistically by drawing fire over their heads?  If so, how did the readers or consumers of this art differentiate between someone having a good idea and someone being on fire?  History is a mystery.

Morning

Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.

~ Mahatma Gandhi 

- - - - -

I like the early mornings before anyone is awake.
Especially before I am awake.  Things are so quiet then.

Daring

 

Hunting, fishing, drawing, and music occupied my every moment. 

Cares I knew not, and cared naught about them.

~ John James Audubon

- - - - -

 

An old bobber in the grass is a sign of fishing trips past.  A a warning to worms about fishing trips in the future.  I bet the teenage worms dare each other to go up and touch the bobber.  I bet they don't "double dog dare" each other, though.  Unless they're roundworms, tapeworms, hookworms, whip worms or heartworms. 

Light

Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow.

~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

- - - - -

Ripley does not like to look directly at a camera.  He will maybe give it a sideways glance, but that's about it.  I think it is because he has had a camera flash in the eyeball one too many times.  I don't know who did that too him.

Sometimes he will look directly at you when you're taking a photo if you tape a steak to your forehead.  But I hardly ever do that.

Trail

 

An arrow may fly through the air and leave no trace; but an ill thought leaves a trail like a serpent.
~ Charles Mackay

- - - - -

Okay, that sign is ridiculous.  Hardly any dogs at all can read.  And those who can, can't read well.  They would probably think that the sign said "Trial,"and if they went down there thinking the were auditioning for the Westminster Dog Show, they'd be really disappointed.

Is the Westminster Dog Show kind of like canine American Idol?

Power

 

Far better to think historically, to remember the lessons of the past.  Thus, far better to conceive of power as consisting in part of the knowledge of when not to use all the power you have.  Far better to be one who knows that if you reserve the power not to use all your power, you will lead others far more successfully and well.

~ A. Bartlett Giamatti

- - - - -

This photo is ironic because it shows solar power and power lines.  Well, they could be phone lines.  You know what I wish?  You think I'm going to say I wish we would use more renewable energy.  Sure.  Okay.  That would be good, I suppose.

But what I was going to say is that wouldn't it be cool if there was a superhero and instead of being The Bionic Woman she would be The Ironic Woman?  Her superpower would be making people stop and think.  Which would really be the most amazing superpower of all, wouldn't it?

Up

Always keep your mind as bright and clear as the vast sky, the great ocean, and the highest peak, empty of all thoughts. Always keep your body filled with light and heat. Fill yourself with the power of wisdom and enlightenment.

 ~ Morihei Ueshiba

- - - - -

I think that the sky is above us so we have something to see and be in awe of when we look up.  I also think that is why Godzilla exists.

Phoenix

The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from the ashes and rise.

~ Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

- - - - -

I think the story of the phoenix rising from the ashes is cool.  Overcoming adversity or defeat or bouncing back from the verge of destruction.  Very cool.


I wonder, though, if the legend would have lasted over time if it had been something else instead of a phoenix.  A warthog.  Or a leech.  Or a cockroach.  I mean cockroaches can survive almost everything, but I don't think we as a society hold them in the same kind of esteem as a phoenix.

Desert

A desert is a place without expectation.

~ Nadine Gordimer.

- - - - -

I think I figured out that I like the desert.  I am very surprised by this.  Because I do not like movies about the desert.  Or about snow caves.  Or about submarines.  Or just movies about snow and being in the snow.  

But, you know what?  Not all of the real desert is like the movie desert.  Who would have guessed?  The movies accurately portray almost everything else...

Dissertating

 

I always wrote with the idea that what I put out there is going to stay there.  Once I publish something, it has been published.  I've never deleted more than one or two posts from my site.  I don't think that there are takebacks.  I don't feel right about it.

~ Alison Headley

- - - - -

Is it simply a coincidence that dissertating and dysentery sound so similar?  I was going to say more about that and make some comparisons, but then I started reading about dysentery and now I don't feel very well.

Fence

Love you neighbor as yourself, but don't take down the fence.

~ Carl Sandburg

- - - - -

When I was a toddler, my parents put a complicated chain / tie mechanism on the gate to our backyard.  I am assuming they did that to keep me in the yard so I wouldn't run out into the street or something.  Well, our family folklore has it that one day my mom was looking out and the garbage man was bringing out trash can back and he couldn't get in the yard because of all the restraints on the gate.  My mom said that I undid all the bindings so he could get in and drop off our trash can. 

Several years later, the chains and miscellany were all rusted and my brother Erik was playing near that gate and got attacked by wasps. 

I think the moral of the story is that the locks and walls and fences we put up often neither protect us nor do they keep things unwanted away from us.  Instead, we should wear shirts that say, "Please don't damage me" and see if that works.

Of course, those wasps probably couldn't read and would have still attacked Erik if he had been wearing that kind of t-shirt.

Sockart

True love is like a pair of socks: you gotta have two and they've gotta match.

~ Erich Fromm

- - - - -

Elizabeth took two classes this summer at summer school.  Some advanced math class she wanted to take and making sock monkeys.  

When I was a kid my mom made me a sock monkey out of a pair of my actual socks.  Except it wasn't a monkey.  It was a snake.  I'm sure if you ask my mom she would say that sock snakes are much more difficult to make than sock monkeys.

But my mom lies sometimes. 

Vegetable

I have always been an animal lover. I had a hard time disassociating the animals I cuddled with - dogs and cats, for example - from the animals on my plate, and I never really cared for the taste of meat. I always loved my Brussels sprouts.

~ Kristin Bell

- - - - -

I like Brussels sprouts.  I have to admit, though, that until I wrote this blog post, I thought they were brussel sprouts.  Not Brussels sprouts.  According to Wikipedia, however, they might be just as aptly named Roman sprouts or Belgium sprouts.

Learning is fun.

And if Brussels sprouts are looking for a new marketing campaign, I might suggest the song "Shout" by Tears for Fears.  With a little tweaking, I think it could work.

Road

The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.

~ Colin R. Davis

- - - - -

Some roads are more difficult to travel than others.  Just like some lives are more difficult to live than others. Maybe when I come back in another life, I will have a job paving roads.  And maybe I'll read this blog and think, "Wow.  That is so true."  And then I'll get caught up in a weird time and space travel thing and they'll make my story into a movie and I can be rich and write a blog all the time and not have to pave roads anymore.

But I won't ever forget how important my job was to make the way easier for others.  Or, if I do forget it, it will be because I am out buying a new car.  And then if that car gets stuck on a bad road somewhere, it will all come back to me.

And the movie will star Anne Hathaway, I think.

Chair

A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier. 

That is why Chippendale is famous.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

- - - - -

Whoever invented the folding chair was a genius.  That person knew that there was more than one place a person might like to sit. 

Food

I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants.

~ A. Whitney Brown

- - - - -

I wish you spelled the word "vegan" with two GGs.  That would be so ironic.

Chess

A draw may be the beautiful and logical result of fine attacks and parries; and the public ought to appreciate such games, in contrast, of course, to the fear-and-laziness draws.  

~  Bent Larsen

- - - - -

One time, I think in second or third grade, I had to go to the "losers bracket" because Joel Hanson and I were playing checkers and we got to the point where neither one of us could move because we had blocked each other in.  According to our teacher, I "lost" because it was my turn and I couldn't make a move.  

Seriously?  Never heard of something called a "draw" or a "do-over?"  Seriously, if you can't have do-overs in grade school, when do you get them?

And, for the record, I know that the photo above is of chess pieces and not checkers.  But what are chess pieces, other than checkers with hats on?

Bridge

That is the road we all have to take - over The Bridge of Sighs into eternity.

~ Soren Kierkegaard

- - - - -

I was in a store the other night and there was a kid crying.  It was one of those, "I'm being ridiculous because I'm not getting something that I want" kind of cries.  Anyway, his mom was not happy.  Here is how the conversation went...

Mom: (to crying kid) You are the biggest whiner.

Crying Kid's Sister:  I thought I was the biggest whiner!

Crying Kid: (still crying) No you're not!!!  I am!!!

Ick

It was not so very long ago that people thought that semiconductors were part-time orchestra leaders and microchips were very, very small snack foods

~ Geraldine Ferraro

- - - - -

It should be called just "Icken in a Biskit."

Barn

 

I'm obsessively opposed to the typical.

~ Lady Gaga

- - - - -

I wonder, if Lady Gaga were a farmer and people asked her why she farmed the way she did if she would say, "Baby, I was barn this way."  

(pause)  

I find it highly unlikely that she would say that.  For one thing, it doesn't really make sense.  For another, farmers rarely call each other "baby."

I will say, though, that "Old McGaga had a Farm" has a certain appeal to it.

Try

Life is like riding a bicycle: you don't fall off unless you stop pedaling.

~ Claude Pepper

- - - - -

I think they are called trycycles because you ought to try one before you get a buycycle.  If you don't like a trycycle, you really won't like a buycycle.  They're much more tippy overish.

Sky

A certain recluse, I know not who, once said that no bonds attached him to this life, and the only thing he would regret leaving was the sky.

~ Kenko Yoshida

- - - - -

When I look up at the sky, I like to imagine some benevolent force is smiling down on me.  And that the force - whatever name you want to give it - favors me and wishes me well and is about to let money rain down on me.  Paper money - individual bills.  Because coins or bundles of cash would hurt me if they fell on me.

Driving

Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window.

~ Peter Drucker

- - - - -

Leslie: (complaining about traffic) There's an asshole behind me.

Me:  Um, there's always an asshole behind you.

Leslie:  I guess you're right.  There are two assholes behind me.

Frisbee

The principal's toupee is not a frisbee.

~ Bart Simpson

- - - - -

I really enjoyed seeing the woman above playing frisbee in February with snow on the ground wearing that dress.  I'm not saying that she was particularly good at frisbee.  And I'm not saying I'm an expert.  I just liked seeing it.

And I also liked when she missed the frisbee and I caught it and got a free frisbee.  Because frisbee without the "is-b" is free.

Puzzle

I wanna make a jigsaw puzzle that's 40,000 pieces. And when you finish it, it says 'go outside.'

~ Demetri Martin

- - - - -

Elizabeth: (to Michelle as Michelle stares at the puzzle pieces) Gettin' too hard for you there, Michelle?

Michelle: Nope.  I think I'm doing pretty well, actually.

Elizabeth leaves the puzzle table.

Michelle:  Too hard for you, Shorty?

E: Nope.  It's so easy it's aggravating, so I thought I'd leave the rest to you. 

Relaxing

I learned very early that an audience would relax and look at things differently if they felt they could laugh with you from time to time. There's an energy that comes through the release of tension that is laughter.

~ Twyla Tharp

- - - - -

After we watched "Shutter Island" and then I picked "Big" to try and get people to quit being freaked out about "Shutter Island" before bedtime, Maddie got to choose something for us to watch.  She chose an episode of "Shark Week" about the USS Indianapolis which was sunk by a torpedo and then the men had to try and survive for five days until they were rescued - during which time they were attacked by sharks as well as other perils.

I told Maddie I was glad I didn't have to sleep in the basement like she did because if the world flooded overnight, that is probably where the sharks would go first.

Cooking

Are you casting asparagus on my cooking?

~ Curly Howard

- - - - -

Elizabeth and I were grateful to Maddie for making homemade mini corndogs for dinner.  And we were grateful again when Maddie said, "I don't really like these" because it meant we didn't have to eat them.

Film

Film is one of the three universal languages, the other two: mathematics and music.

~ Frank Capra

- - - - -

The other night Elizabeth, Maddie and I were hanging out watching movies.  Elizabeth chose "Shutter Island" because she is reading "Shutter Island" in school.  Don't ask me why.  I don't know the curriculum there very well.

Anyway, we all three agreed it was probably a pretty good movie if you paid attention.  However, Elizabeth and I were working on a jigsaw puzzle and Maddie got up part way through to make us homemade mini corndogs for dinner.

So, we highly recommend this film if you have a decent attention span.

(pause)

At least we think we recommend it.