Soy Milk

I've finally switched over to soy milk with my cereal in the morning. Back in college, I kept hearing about how fatty milk is, so I decided to begin a program to wean myself off of 2%. I moved to 1%, and after several years, moved down to skim milk. I was fine with skim, but when it's just Kelly and I, then I'm the only one who drinks it, so it makes more sense to just stick with soy milk that we both use. It has been at least six years, but now I'm drinking vanilla soy milk. Sure it tastes a little different, but it's not bad by any measure, so I'm sticking with it. Not having regular milk in the house for a week and getting sick of toast in the morning is what drove me to it.

When Life Gives You Lemons...

While Kelly and I are waiting for our lemon zest to soak for our homemade limoncello, we had six peeled lemons sitting around, so I made some lemonade! I didn't have a recipe, so I made up my own. It's tart with just enough sweetness to make it bearable.

For each lemon add...
- 1 cup water
- 1/8 cup sugar

The Door, Day 3

I painted on President's Day. All done for now! It probably needs a second coat, but it will be fine until the weather warms up again.

The Door, Day 2

So by the end of Sunday, I had finished almost everything. I had to straighten up the hole for the doggy door because it was slightly crooked. Then I cut the holes for the doorknob and deadbolt. I used the old hardware from the original door so we don't have to change keys. Then I built a new threshold and added weatherstripping foam along the sides (the old weatherstripping was metal and rusting!). Unfortunately, even with compression the weatherstripping added 1/8 inch, so I needed to adjust the positions of the strike plates towards the interior. All of these things (plus some trial and error) took me all day, from 9am to 9pm. The back room is a mess, but the only thing left now is to paint!

The Door, Day 1

Here's how far I got on Saturday. As you can see, I cut out the hole for the doggy door and trimmed the bottom of the door with my new jigsaw. Somehow I managed to get it onto the hinges. It's a solid core slab, so it was pretty heavy. I also had to plane of the right side of the door so it would close properly (it also has to be slightly angled towards the exterior). But there's plenty more to do!

All Alone

Kelly left for Arizona yesterday, so it's just me and Gunner for the weekend. I have plenty to do, though. Gunner desperately needs a doggy door so I'll be installing a new back door over the next few days. I ordered a plain, primered solid-core slab a while ago that's sitting in the shed. Apparently, installing a door is quite a complicated process, so it will probably take me at least until Sunday afternoon. I'll have to trim it down to size, install the doggy door, cut the proper doorknob and deadbolt holes, and paint it. I think I'll see if the local library has a how-to book for tips and to make sure I don't miss any steps.

GSW

My talk for the Geological Society of Washington last night went well, but it was a bit of a personal disaster for me. I was given a 20 minute time limit and I went long. I new I was in trouble when I got the 2 minute warning and I was only halfway through my slides! I started with my GSA talk, which was also slated for 20 minutes but only took me 17, and added a few slides. But they were background slides with a lot of explanation. I figured that was important for a general audience of geologists. I probably don't need all of my data slides anyway. I should just show the pertinent results and have that be the end of it.

Valentine's Day

Last night I cooked Kelly a nice dinner for Valentine's Day (we're celebrating early because she's leaving for AZ on the 14th). It was pretty involved, and I was really happy how everything turned out. But the important thing is that Kelly loved it too. So here's my three course menu:

Insalata Mista
Earthbound Farms herb salad mix
cucumber
carrots
red onion
homemade balsamic vinaigrette (red wine vinegar + balsamic vinegar + olive oil + salt)

Orecchiette with Broccoli Rabe
orecchiette (ear-shaped) pasta
broccoli rabe + garlic + red pepper flakes
parmesan cheese

Individual Apple Crostate
homemade pasta frolla dough
2 granny smith apples
1 braeburn apple
cinnamon
sugar
lemon juice

All three recipes come from Italian Classics from Cook's Illustrated, which also includes an awesome recipe for vegetarian lasagne. I really like this cookbook because they explain how they experimented with different ingredients and techniques in order to figure out the perfect recipe.

Ben Stein Expelled

I used to think Ben Stein was one of those few intelligent public figures, but not after watching the trailer to his upcoming documentary. You got to see it to believe the audacity of it. In it, you will see Darwinism equated with Nazism (I mean, Hitler may have used Darwinism as a justification, but that does NOT mean it is a logical conclusion of Darwinism!). You will also see some sort of Big Science conspiracy against Intelligent Design. I am involved in one of the more controversial scientific disciplines for ID folks, and I have NEVER seen any ounce of professional discrimination because of it. There was even an all-day ID session at a recent Geological Society of America conference replete with ID proponents, and believe me they had their fair say with no suppression or persecution. In fact they were probably some of the more popular talks at the meeting!

Kelly and I were discussing it last night, and I brought up the distinction between Free Speech and Science. With free speech, any idiot has the right to say what they want, but good science is supposed to be close to some objective truth, and therefore is held to a higher standard than plain old free speech. That's why scientific journals are peer reviewed with rigorous scrutiny (I know this firsthand--I had plenty of opposition to my puny little paper). And if your paper gets rejected, I would say 99% of the time it is because you have bad science or unfounded conclusions in it. To make it even more fair, most journals allow you to list unacceptable reviewers who might have personal motives against you!

The biggest problem with the movie is that Ben Stein is a respected individual. Whatever he says, the ordinary American will immediately accept. Fortunately, he seems to have a lot of opposition from the internet masses, judging from the comments to his blog posts.

Do I look any different?

Seriously, though, I don't know how you 4-eyes do it. Although everything seems clearer, my depth perception is screwed up. Things that are further away appear smaller to me instead of far away. When I move around a piece of paper or a box it actually appears to change shape. I hope my brain can learn how objects look now.