Taipei Wonders #2
Posted in Diversion, Misc, Photo Op on Nov 13th, 2011 Comments Off
Not a comforting warning from the ATM at an actual bank!
Posted in Diversion, Misc, Photo Op on Nov 13th, 2011 Comments Off
Not a comforting warning from the ATM at an actual bank!
Posted in Diversion, Misc, Photo Op on Nov 12th, 2011 Comments Off
I’ve never had such an elevated latte before… Taipei 101:
Posted in All, Diversion, Misc on Jan 30th, 2011 Comments Off
I have long struggled with finding the right way to keep track of calendars, lists, plans, etc, while on the go. I was an “early adopter” of the whole “Personal Digital Assistant” (PDA) thing. I had one of the early (though not earliest) Apple Newtons, and bought a final generation Newton MessagePad 2100 in 1998, [...]
Posted in All, Diversion, Misc, Photo Op on May 22nd, 2010 Comments Off
Well, yesterday, it was that time again – time for a different view on my way to work. (Luckstone Quarry lookout, W&OD bike trail) A momentary aberration in my daily commute — Bike to Work Day! (Or, as I like to think of it — “Guilt-free eating day” ;-) ). Yesterday’s ride was 19mi [...]
Leesburg VA reports 27.5″ of snow from the storm. I’m still miles away on a different continent, but, here are the reports I’ve gotten from home — digging out. 08h00 Sunday, February 7, 2010 – the sun does come up, post-snowpocalypse 16h00 Sunday, February 7, 2010 – dug out, to the road, anyway
Here’s how the current winter storm is playing out in the Washington DC area: Reporting from the LA Times (!). “As of late afternoon, a total of 32.4 inches was recorded at Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, according to the National Weather Service. That two-day accumulation topped the previous record, compiled during the blizzard [...]
Posted in All, Diversion, Misc, Photo Op on Jan 3rd, 2010 Comments Off
Many buildings in Amsterdam are old. And they have a “native population”, that survives transfer of ownership. To help deal with this, it is not unusual for restaurants to employ “peace keepers” of the four-legged sort. I recently met Mavis: Mavis was not above supplementing her rodent-chasing diet with handouts from the restaurant’s kitchen: While [...]
I do mean fog… It’s like somebody turned off the CGI rendering of the background (cove, boats, rest of island…). Or, here’s a different perspective of Flaggs Cove, Grand Manan, not in fog: The fog can also play tricks — fading here, and thickening there. Here, you see a glimpse of Castalia. But, here it’s [...]
Posted in All, Misc, Photo Op on Jun 10th, 2009 Comments Off
Here’s a fine example of something that should be seen, and not heard: These pheasants make a noise that sounds something like a car starter being turned after the car is already running. This guy & his missus have taken over our property, strutting about in full ownership mode. They might be even better tasted [...]
988 miles, blue carrier, pink blankie… Window! No, really — quite happy:
Merry merry! Best wishes of the season. It’s certainly been merry here. An important point about message fragmentation. Here are 2 very different messages, each starting with the same first chunk: We found the roasting pan we thought we’d given away. We found the roasting pan we thought we’d given away, but it’s not in [...]
Last week, I did my Christmas (cookie) marathon, constructing and baking 4 different batches of cookies through the week, and another 4 on Saturday. It’s not like there’s a lack of other things going on this month — I just broke them up into stages and wove the different stages (dough, shaping, resting, baking, decorating) [...]
Let me explain something. This: is a cheese plate. And this: is a wanna-brie . Opening up the familiar wood box, I was astonished to find a sealed plastic tub inside. Think of the “hankie” scene from the opening of “The Commitments”. Look more closely at the labelling — from the country that has to [...]
I have found one sure fire way to make 3 lbs of butter seem like not much of a big deal — and it has to do with Christmas cookies. For whatever reason, even as there is no time for (m)any of the usual sorts of holiday things, such as decorating our home, I hang [...]
The other day, DH approached me with a box of yarn in hand, prompting me to retreat and utter some sailorly language. The attentive will note that this is not my expected reaction to yarn; certainly, it was not what DH might have expected. The problem was that it was a box that had been [...]
And so endeth the month (of blogging daily). There was a post for each day in November 2008 (even if the timestamps sometimes pushed an entry into the next day!). I found it an interesting experiment. It was definitely challenging to come up with something for each and every day. Some days were particularly challenging [...]
Beach: Beach glass: Wikipedia gets it right in observing that beach glass is a strange phenomenon — an odd case where something more valuable is created from man-made litter. “Beach glass” is remnants of (usually coloured) glass articles that have been broken and distributed in the sea, carried and tumbled by time and tide, to [...]
Faced with the question of “what are the top kitchen appliances you would bring to an island”, I can tell you I include “slow cooker” on my list. This week’s culinary challenge was to prepare a reasonable Thanksgiving dinner in a kitchen that has virtually no staples (can’t reasonably keep liquids between visits — they’ll [...]
Today we recognize that we have much for which to give thanks, not the least of which is captured in the views from our driveway — that it is our driveway, that we’re here to enjoy the island, that the weather was so stupendous that it was impossible not to smile :-) Today we particularly [...]
Same socks,too. Not used to seeing this place with snow. Was a little stormytoday. Much happier to have been on the ferry yesterday, rather than today –might have had a roughride.