BTW, I have a perfectly nice neighbor who works for the TSA. He heaves the luggage through the x-ray machine. For years, he worked as a field service technician on minicomputers like the VAX. He was laid off back in 2002 or so, and never managed to find another job in the industry. He served in the military as a young man, and this federal job dovetails with that to get him some retirement benefits in a few years.
When I'm waiting in line for someone to do a visual inspection of an x-ray of my bag, knowing that this is an approach that doesn't work worth a damn, I try to remind myself that the person staring at the screen isn't responsible for the nonsensical process.
Shortly after the Lockerbie tragedy, I was returning to the States from France on a business trip where I had be demonstrating my (then) employer's products. Checking in for my flight, I had two luggage carts loaded with a suitcase, a briefcase, and various protective cases containing:
- 3 Optical Time Domain Reflectometers (look like oscilloscopes)
- 1 plotter
- 2 laptops
My briefcase contained a little toolbox with a large Swiss army knife, a ceramic blade for nicking optical fiber, a razor blade for cutting the Kevlar in optical cables, and bottle of isopropyl alcohol for cleaning optical connectors.
An airline employee asked me if I had any electronic equipment. I gestured at the carts full of equipment cases and began to recite the list. He interrupted me and asked if I had a blow dryer or a cassette player. I said no, and he waved me through.
excellent thread to choose, of course.
People exaggerate about colonoscopies. The actual procedure is nothing -- they put an IV in your arm, say "here comes the drugs", and you wake up an hour or two later feeling fine, and hungry.
The preparation is jet-propelled pooping. Not the best way to spend an evening, but not that big a deal. Arrange things so you can lay down comfortably between waves, when things start to slow down.
Xeger @ 211:
I'm happy with my Kenmore Elite HE3t. I bought it a couple of years ago, replacing a small, 20-year-old top loader. What a difference!
Dooce had a rather different experience with one, though she seemed to have even less luck with a Maytag. Her vivid chronicle does make me wish that I had more than a million followers on twitter.
kim @ 416: That is deeply, deeply wrong. And very, very clever.
Stefan Jones @ 769: I picked up some mint chocolate chips for fudge season, too. I have settled into a tradition of having a party near Christmas, in the afternoon, with a buffet of desserts. It must include fudge! This year I'm going to attempt the 3-layer chocolate mousse torte in the recent Cooks Illustrated. I just got fresh, local walnuts from my CSA, so there will be baklava, too. Mmmm. December food madness.
Xopher (715), Jenny Island (721), and Marilee (741): I'm sorry. I did a short post on a touchy subject without being very clear, and not thinking very clearly.
By "never the twain shall meet", I mean Absolutes and Community. An example of a community failing due to absolutes would be a congregation fracturing along the lines of scriptural interpretation.
I do tend to think that religion is about absolutes, perhaps because I was raised Catholic in an earlier age, and I will try harder to shake this off. Four years in convent boarding school leaves a mark.
Marilee, I also wish politicians didn't spend so much time at religious ceremonies. I do think it's a long way from speaking at one, and legislating on the basis on one religion's teaching, which is what Obama was talking about in the speech that I linked to.
Lee @683 and the Pat Robertson topic in general: Obama expressed this beautifully in a speech during the campaign. Religion is about absolutes. Communities -- including politics -- are about compromise. Never the twain shall meet.
nerdycellist #631: Your ideas for coatings sound delicious. I've only dipped chocolates in a class, and I'm reluctant to try it at home unless there are two of us -- one to stir and constantly monitor temperature, while the other makes the truffles. I always just roll mine in cocoa powder with a little powdered sugar or maybe cinnamon stirred in.
My theory is that one should go cheap on the booze, when adding it to chocolate or using it for baking. The chocolate itself is adding lots of luscious flavor. I'm dubious that the more subtle flavors from the liquor come through. I assume the main contribution is the volatile alcohol delighting the nose. I use Brandy rather than cognac. No-name amaretto instead of the fancy label. The cheapest kind of Grand Marnier, for that brandy + orange. If anyone has done a side-by-side to disprove this, I'd love to hear about it.
Just to be inconsistent, I was shocked when Cooks Illustrated did a taste test, and said that people can't tell the difference between different brands of vanilla extract in baked goods. I still buy the good stuff, because I love the way it smells when I pour it into the measuring spoon, and it does go into some things that aren't heated much.
Michael Roberts: I second Elliott Mason on the Diana Gabaldon Outlander series. Aside from the whole time travel thing, and the main characters showing up at every important historical event, the historical setting seems really grounded to me. Strong plots and characters -- I can't put them down.
Several people have recommended Jennifer Crusie. She's incredibly funny. I didn't like Crusie's books with co-author Bob Mayer as much -- I found the violence a jarring element. I like her later books better than her early Harlequin ones. I recommend "Welcome to Temptation", and "Faking It".
Heyer is usually mentioned as the classic (and she is good), but in my opinion the original is Jane Austen. If you've somehow never actually read "Pride and Prejudice", do.
I adore Josephine Tey's books, too, aside from the occasional cold jab of prejudice. Often a problem reading books from a half century or so ago.
If you haven't already, you must check out the Deep Fried Jello particle. Oh, my.
xeger @ 379: Simple side dish -- chop cabbage, boil, drain, then add lots of mustard, caraway and dill seeds.
We're in a neighborhood that doesn't have many kids, on a street with poor streetlights, so we never get very many trick or treaters. We got about 4 knocks on the door, for a total of a dozen or so kids. My favorite costume was a boy dressed as a zombie doctor: green scrubs, well daubed with fake blood, plus more blood smeared around the mouth. Inexpensive, gory, and comfortable! The little girl dressed as a grand piano had a much more difficult time maneuvering.
Janet K @ 261: You mentioned Social Security disability. I don't have any personal experience with it (fortunately), but I've read in The Oregonian that it's difficult to get that coverage. The average wait for a hearing is 650 days -- more than a year and a half. Many claims that are eventually approved are rejected the first time.
Sad story: Getting disability payments can be a fight to the death
Raphael @ 250: If you are employed at a job with good benefits, you can get insurance as part of the group. If you are not employed, you have to buy insurance as an individual. If you have a history of expensive illness, no insurance company will sell you coverage. If you exhaust all of your savings, and reach the poverty line, then you qualify for government insurance coverage. You'll also qualify for government insurance if you're elderly. Some states offer policies for individuals who cannot buy private insurance, but not all do.
It's ghastly, and inhumane. At least 2 of my family members would not be able to buy insurance if they weren't employed.
Portland has a great options for old computer equipment -- Free Geek. They repair them, install Linux, and give them away to nonprofits. The work is mostly done by volunteers. The rule is something like "spend 24 hours building computers for other people, and you get one, too.". Wonderful place to learn computer skills, too.
Lila @ 200: I wonder if the intelligence community is aware of this issue. Perhaps we are surrounded by middle-aged female NSA ninjas; we just can't see them.
That idea certainly shows up in mystery novels. The variant that I particularly liked was G.M. Ford's P.I. hiring the homeless to do surveillance. They can sit or wander anywhere in Seattle (or most any American city) and everyone just looks right through them.
On the reading thread, I recall learning to read in 1st grade. How pedestrian. In 7th grade, we were given a series of lessons to work through to improve our reading speed and comprehension. I tested out of it immediately. Alas, no glory for me. I was also revealed to have a great big vocabulary of words that I couldn't pronounce correctly, and I had to do remedial phonics.
While I fully believe that stores should be doing more training, I wouldn't be surprised at all if some of these stores are trying. Years ago, I was in a marketing research seminar, and one of our speakers was from the marketing department of a car company. During the question and answer period, several women spoke about being treated badly when shopping for a car. He said they pounded the dealerships with information about how many wives make the buying decision, how many single women buy cars, etc, and it seemed to just roll off of the saleseople's prior programming.
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