birthday pizza mars

So its been a bit of time between posts. Last saturday we had an 80s party round these parts. Was at a house a little bit down the ol' country road and we travelled there in perhaps the greatest caravan I've ever been a part of. After numerous visits to athrift store where for 5 bucks you can buy a bag and leave with it filled with clothes, we were attired in our finest 80s apparel and proceeding to the house via bicycle, a very 80s mode of transportation for me. Was a lot of fun dancing for 4 hrs and such. Fans of my original style of dancing will be disappointed to hear that I lost in the balloting for best male dancer to charlie who is a mild-mannered plant phylogenist by a day and a smooth dancing, wise cracking artful dodger type by night. I was wearing a sweet gray jacket (think rain man) which was purchased for 2 dollars, a red hawaiian shirt, 2 watches, and a necktie. That night at the stroke of midnight I was transformed as if by magic, or by cultural and legal convention, into a 23 year old. When I arose from my slumber the following morning made some buttermilk pancakes for myself, opened a package from the family with books and season 1 of arrested development, a highly acclaimed television show that is still profitably underwhelming, and several nice cards. Kevin also very thoughtfully sent me a disc for my birthday which I was immediately enamored with as it has the chinese zodiac on it, providing an easy reference for whenever I forget that I'm a dog. Sort of had a quiet sunday which was good then threw a roast in the oven at 150 and went to watch the beginnings of Batman, I think my favorite comic book movie to date if only for the use of the word spelunking, and the ninjas, though there is much more to enjoy than those two items. When I returned the roast was not burnt or otherwise inedible and I enjoyed it that night and every ensuing supper for the past four days.

Now for some bad news. I'm afraid that my attendance at sandblast is in jeopardy. The powers that be have decided that the very same weekend as chicago's premier annual beach tournament would be a good time for everyone here to enjoy a subsidized trip to the black hills of south dakota. I would still like to go to chicago, but any method of transporting myself across space to get there is now in doubt. Of course if I could move to and fro in 4 dimensions with facility equal to my powers in the first three this would prove a trivial obstacle. I'll look into arranging spatial transport upon my return from Mars but at this point my probability of attendance has dipped considerably. This is a great disappointment as in addition to the regulars zahlen, tazo, lyrica, josie, Tea & Strumpet types, and other notables will be there.

So I'm beginning to look forward to Mars more and more, to the uninitiated and those wondering how I can manage the logistics of coming back from there but cannot get to chicago this is a 3 day ultimate tourney in pittsburgh in addition to being a heavenly body, and today I got really excited when I saw the full roster of people going. Get to play with a lot of friends from chicago and Josh and/or Gwen, depending which is looking after their toddler on any given point. Its also abando's return to grass which should be interesting and fun.

So at the top of my list of things to do when I get back from Pennsylvania is to once again begin looking for a job in earnest. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions feel free to contact me with them. I am at this point willing to do just about anything except I'd like to avoid sales of any kind. I also like to think and research stuff. As anyone can see from that last sentence I'm also an excellent communicator.

other less meaningful things that have happened are, I had my first cup of coffee in a year and a half and it was quite good after 3 spoonfuls of sugar, enjoyed it while watching arrested development, I'm feeling a little jittery at the moment. I named my 6 week old basil plant Basil, it is sort of like a pet, I feel a genuine sense of joy whenever I interract with him and I bring him out for the day and put him away at night, I hope to steadily devour him in the near future. I have 2 pounds of honey and don't use it very often, but i like the taste, has anyone made candy with honey? How hard/easy is it? recipes? The spurs won the championship, I am very happy about this as I root for them as long as they don't play the bulls due to very fond childhood memories associated with them. That's about it. oh yeah. In intern news here last friday night a comical series of events played themselves out. A girl got quite drunk and had a meaningful conversation with a fellow about wanting a relationship, sadly he didn't see things the way she did. Later, wanting to speak to him more she went to his tent. he was not there. She decided to wait for him. She began to feel sick and proceeded to throw up inside his tent. this led to a mad dash of trying to warn him about the tent, which was a moot point as he had left the creek for the cities since talking to her. I was witness to the great moment on monday when he asked her if she had in fact thrown up in his tent, which he was 100% certain had happened because some thoughtful amateur historian had taken pictures of the aftermath, and she with a face closer in colour to red than not admitted to having done it. He took it rather well both when he became aware of the fact and later when he asked her about it, and to her expressed his happiness that she was none the worse for the amount of drinking she had done and that he wasn't angry about the episode at all since she of course had cleaned it up the next morning. In addition to the throwing up there was someone on the roof of a building threatening to pee on passer-bys. Good times, good times.

In what's joe saying, when I just looked up how to spell passer-bys (don't know if I got it right) came across passepartout, which is a person that can go anywhere, or a thing given to a person that allows them to go anywhere. I also believe its the same spelling as the servant to phineas fogg. while I haven't used it yet, I am certain that I soon will.

Finally here is the pizza recipe that Kevin asked for courtesy of Rose.
1 T active dry yeast
1 1/2 c warm water
1/4 c nonfat dry milk
2 t table salt or 1 T coarse salt
1/4 c olive oil
2/3 c wheat
2-2 1/2 c white flr
cornmeal if you've got it to sprinkle on heavy cookie sheet

1. Dissolve yeast completely in 1/2 c water in lg bowl. Stir
milk, salt, and rest of h2o together (I use 1/4 c reg warm
milk and 3/4 c h2o for this part), then pour over yeast.

2. Add and stir to mix: oil, wheat flr, and ~ 2 c white flr.
Place on lightly flr'd surface, while you wash out, oil
bowl. Knead lighlty just a few m, just til smooth, adding a
lil flr if necessary. Place in bowl, cover w/ plastic wrap,
let rise while you go do something else (at least 1 h), til
it's 2x size.

3. It'll lk real spongy and oily when you tk it out
of the bowl, so mk sure your hands, the surf, rolling pin are
all well-flr'd. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

4. Divide dough into 2-4 pcs. Knead LIGHTLY, no where near
as much as we did for AB's, ~ 3-8 m, til dough is just smooth
and not sticky, sprinkling on more flr as you go along to kp
from sticking.

5. Flatten w/ rolling pin, coaxing it out from center towards
edges. Get it as thin/even as possible, concentrating on
areas that remain thick by twirling w/ your fists. Haven't
gotten much ht on the twirl, but it does get to be real thin.

6. Place on flr'd or cornmeal'd heavy cookie sheet, sprinkle
w/ toppings, and bake ~ 12 m. EN-JOY!

Superior Success!

So the first bit of news which corresponds to the second word of the title for this post is that I have finally made good pizza. I baked up a batch from a recipe that Rose sent me that was lifted from the Bread Book, made it and after making the first one good but not quite crispy enough, the second was cooked very close to the form of an ideal pizza, at least for me. Was thin, crispy, with garlic, tomatoes but no sauce, farmer's cheese, gorgonzola cheese, parmesan cheese, olive oil, and italian seasoning toppings. My sole new year's resolution was to make good pizza dough by the end of the year on a consistent basis. I feel that I can now do that. So I'm quite happy. Thanks again Rose for the recipe. I'm very excited by this. Tomorrow, more pizza as its the solsitce and I'm making a "sun" pizza to celebrate.

The second bit of news which references more the first word in the title is that I went backpacking along the north shore of superior this weekend with robyn, caroline, and EB who are 3 of my coworkers here. We left directly after work friday and passed through duluth on our way to the superior hiking trail just north of that. Was very impressive, especially for midwest hiking. We hiked along split rock river, which looked very much like a serious river with rapids, sizable waterfalls, and cliffs of varying sizes on either side. There was also some hiking along a ridge with a delicious view of Lake Superior, and some actual hills that at times reminded me of the appalachian trail. Incidentally many of my thoughts returned to thinking of the AT and all the adventures that happened along it. Some of the notable things found, said, or otherwise experienced were
Columbine flower, quite picturesque, hangs upside down with a beautiful combination of yellow and pink.

piliated woodpecker, thought it was a raven at first, large bird, makes a loud booming sound in its hunt for bugs on dead trees, picture woody woodpecker.

Mud, lots of it. Never fell though which boggled my own expectations as I'm known to those who hike with me as a bit of a faller. Reminded me of vermud.

Split Rock, its a duolith. Incidentally duolith doesn't exist as a word but to me it really should be.

Lots of lil debbies star burst cookies as snacks along with copious although not secret recipe gorp. Thought of Kevin every time I ate a lil debbies.

What was either the worlds largest and scientifically undescribed hummingbird or possibly a kingfisher. I'm leaning towards hummingbird.

two intersecting flows of water that in their conjugation formed a diamond checker board pattern. Imagine a checkerboard turned 45 degrees to either side. Was a quite beautiful demonstration of constructive and destructive wave interference, or something of that nature.

An event during saturday's dinner where restarting up the MSR stove caused the flames to momentarily flap against the side of the MSR fuel canister. This prompted a short but lively discussion if we were in danger. I replied that it was unlikely because the canister was most likely fireproof. Robyn in her best alabama and not too far from evanglical voice said, "Well if it does blow its good-bye beans, and hello Jaisus."

Finally, trying to bearbag on friday was quite the adventure. Not quite as bad kevin as when I tried to throw the frisbee with the rope tied to it through the notch in the tree, but we spent a good 15 minutes doing the following. untangling rope, finding tree with limb 25 ft up, throwing rope up only 10-12 ft, trying again at caroline's insistence despite my protestations that it was impossible, repeat above steps 2 more times. Finally I just climbed a pine and hung the bags. Which of course did nothing as regards to bears since they're more able climbers than myself, but I feel that it should at least be attempted, one of those its the principal that counts things.

My little brother sean just got his cast-off but made an interesting discovery when it was on, he discovered that since he couldn't run, if he just jogged the mile run at sports camp rather than start off sprinting he could finish ahead of a lot of the other kids because they got tired earlier. This fascinated him apparently. My brother Andy went sky-diving for his 20th birthday and discovered that if you fall from a plane its a lot of fun. I worry about that one a little. Just Kidding of course, anyway got to go and do stuff but hopefully loyal readers aren't too disappointed with this entry. I feel like I'm doing more interesting things but not writing about them as well. Maybe I should just start a policy of posting more when drunk.

an interesting sidenote. Was at oed.com today checking out words, yes I do that, and came across an appeal for written proof of the word mullet pre-1994. They were also asking for other words but that I thought was the funniest and most topical.

you can comment now without logging in

So After realizing that people had to sign up to post I think I've fixed it so people can comment without having to sign up or anything. I also fixed the date and time. Soon I may add a link, oh what a happy day that will be. Not much to report for today except I got a poem in the mail and had breakfast for dinner. Which streak of 4 consecutive days of pancakes alive.

Spivek revisited, mathematicians please pardon the spelling

So I was prompted to finally write this new entry after visiting cnn.com and seeing something that made me laugh out loud, it was the headline "Paris Hilton to retire in two years" I think as far as commentary goes, this falls under the too easy heading.

So recent news, recent news...walking schtick (sans beer but hopefully this will be amended in the future) was introduced here last week and I think was received most excellently. My team came from down 18-21 to win 25-21. Was pretty sweet. On saturday we had a color party where people living in different buildings came as one color and brought a beverage in that color. I went as yellow and brought beer and had some lemon rum kept in reserve in case things got nuts. Was a lot of fun, danced quite a bit, finally demonstrated the blue-footed boobie dance to narrow acclaim and was not the guy still passed out on the couch at noon the next day from way too much whiskey. I think the lesson there is when you see someone drinking and dancing with a bottle of whiskey in hand and you see the same thing more than 30 minutes later, intervention may be good. I was hoping to come in a yellow tracksuit/jumpsuit straight out of Bruce Lee's unfinished opus Game of Death, or more recently displayed by Uma Thurman in the movie where she tries to kill someone named william

sorry got to save this draft and return, insane rain storm at moment.

but instead bought a plain yellow t-shirt, brought a permanent sharpie, and let people draw yellow things on me. Said a runner from McCallister by way of Somalia drew a yellow eyeless pig on the front, which a certain Calculus book written by Spivek is dedicated to. I should note its donated to yellow pig, and not the yellow pig that would someday be drawn on my shirt. Other things drawn included a rather fancy sun, a banana (nonphallic in nature), some lyrics about the banana, some XOXOs, and the words mellow yellow with what looks like an arrow drawn to my ass. I'm not sure what amy intended with that. In the interests however, of being able to wear the shirt in public I think I will amend that entry to the mellow yellow brick road and instead of an arrow have cobblestone road leading in the general direction of my buttocks. Ok enough on that topic.

While my night was definitely fun someone else here who goes by the name of Charlie had an interesting one as well. Apparently he woke up on the living room floor of some woman's apartment he didn't know. After gathering himself into an erect posture he went to the kitchen and said the following to the two people there, "I don't want to be rude, but can you tell me where I am." He has a touch of the dry wit, which is my brand of humor so we've hit it off well.

Other news, other news.

In the natural world I've seen a jack-in-the-pulpit which is not a jackrabbit in church. But rather a very odd looking plant. Since I can't describe hopefully the following address works
http://2bnthewild.com/plants/H46.htm
(Someday I'll have to learn how to actually use the internet and such and hyperlink that)
also today while working in the plots we were constantly surrounded by about 100 dragonflies that were hovering around at all times. They've always been one of my favorite insect types and it was cool to see them.

in culinary news I had a potsticker cookoff with anna, the young woman who is both a groundfloor jobber and an honoray member of the dinner club for making sushi rolls for our car ride to madison, that was awesome. We both fared well, the audience decided they were a little too different to choose which was best. My own sense is that her's were consistently better but the ones I had done well were their equal and depending on the taster could be considered tastier. Was a lot of fun to cook with someone again, especially as we had an improntu dance party while cleaning afterwards. Went and saw Mr. and Mrs. Smith following that, was pretty good. Maybe not theater good, but entertaining. Then we came back and had strawberry rhubarb pie and vanilla-choclate ice cream. The pie was very commendable. Commendable incidentally is a funny word to me, because it praises something by saying that it is worthy of praise. A sort of self-criticism on praise-giving if you will. Anyway I saw some weird things in the remains after it had melted. First I saw lucifer descending into hell. However, upon reversing the plate 180 degrees I instead saw the back of a woman with the wind in her hair, gazing across a white sand beach into a magnificent sunset. A much better image, tainted only by the fact that the woman had quite the goiter problem. So let this be a lesson to use more iodine people.

In health news I've started to look into getting health insurance and am not very pleased with the initial, very perfunctory findings. Anyone have suggestions of how to go about this?

Well that's it for now, hope all are safe, sound, and had fun at any poultry festival they may have attended over the weekend. Cheerio.

The mad city

So friday after work keith, anna, and myself departed minnesota for the green fields of madison. We arrived about the same time as jason, colin, and john did closely followed by josh, jesus, and biz. Several beers, two bottles of very good strawberry wine later, and after the inception of jobber juice jesus was baptized by john in a fountain.

In the actual tournament we tied our first game. won our second and third. lost to memorial high school in the fourth. I was pretty impressed by them. Although I'll never be able to live down the fact that I lost to a high school team. Athletically we were probably about equal, they were perhaps a little better, but i'm holding onto my dignity by assuming they've been practicing for months. Playing as and with the Jobbers at the first tournament was fun. I feel like different people on the team have slightly different expectations but it should work itself out in time, hopefully. I played alright, all my hucks were slightly off but still had a pretty good percentage caught by very able receivers. I thought my defense was pretty good when I had wind but a lot of the basics, like backhands or not throwing 20 ft push passes and high release forehands seem to have been lost.

that evening after the great dane, try the crop circle wheat, and good byes to everyone but especially yujuan who I may not see again unless she happens to visit Chicago the same time I'm there in the next year we retired to keith's apartment. There we proceeded to someone's 21st birthday party. Was good, everyone seemed nice, but I was pretty beat from playing 5 games and drinking the night before. Made an early night of it and saw the movie kinsey back at keith's. Interesting movie.

Upon my successful return there were seven new people working here, one of which was Ross. I walked into the kitchen and knew within 5 seconds he was from louisiana. The first clue was the accent, the second was the louisiana tech shirt, and the third was that he was attentively stirring a roux in a pan, an obvious initial step towards gumbo production. The gumbo was good, on monday spent half an hour finding a plot of trees where we needed to pull tags and when we got there realized there was no way we could do it as is. So we hiked back 15 minutes to the car to aquire DEET and after copious spraying we were able to venture where non-chemica-odorized men fear to tred and did the work. Was quite nice though hiking around in a large open meadow and forest for an hour.

Found out this morning that my cousin just gave birth to a healthy baby boy named Luke. I'm very excited for the new family as my cousin and her husband are both really good people, I essentially got aquainted with them over last thanksgiving, and I'm sure will make great parents. So I need to get a letter in the mail soon to congratulate them.

And now for a new addition to what's joe saying now. The new phrase of choice is "I'm sweatier than a whore in church." Heard it from someone today out in the savannahs, I like it. The hunter s thompson book continues to amuse, especially his advice to an aspiring writer to avoid time-consuming tasks like mowing the law, he suggests finding a wounded deer, nurse it back to health and tether it to a post in the middle of your lawn. Speaking of deer, I've seen 2 fawns in 2 days. They are quite adurable as they scamper away from humans half-scared to death.