Heather's New Do!

Prime Time

Zach loves Fridays, and not just because of the weekend. Every Friday he gets to stay up to watch his favorite show, Star Wars: Clone Wars. He looks forward to it the whole week.

And as a bonus, we get to hear commentary and embellishments on all the stories and subplots for a whole week after each episode.

No Settings, No Manual.

Technology is everywhere now. It's right up there in our faces and it's lying on our car seats next to the Twinkies. It's in our houses and on our farms. It's under our car hoods and down our wells. Grandmothers have cell phones now. Babies have breathing and heartbeat monitors that NASA would have been envious of a few years ago.

Tech is now everywhere, and it's obvious.

But there is something that bothers me about that, and I think I know what it is. My iPhone taught me.

Technology does wonderful things but it's too...it's not...it's just...there. It's there, and it shouldn't be. I want it, but I don't want it...there. Why do we have to see it? Or even know anything about it?

The answer is: we don't. And I think we'll get that right in the future, because I can already see it coming.

The iPhone oozes technology for sure. Ultra-integrated. 3G Broadband data. GPS. Motion sensors. Proximity sensors, Accelerometers. The high-tech buzzwords are in there, all of them.

But there is something different about this device and I think it's an important distinction.

Steve Jobs calls the iPhone "an artifact from the future", not because of the technology that is crammed into it, but because of how that technology interacts with it's user. That interaction takes place in the user's domain, not the phone's.

It's natural. The technology that it contains is easily harnessed by the user because it's all hidden. Only the human interface is visible. You use your hands and voice and eyes, not a stylus or buttons or cryptic commands. I am amazed at how complicated this device is on the inside and how simple it is on the outside.

I think the best way to describe what technology will be like in 50 or 100 years is this:

It will be pervasive, yet subcutaneous.

It will be everywhere, and hooked into everything, in a way that we even now can't fully imagine. But it will also be so hidden you'll forget it's even there. It will be as if the laws of physics have changed, our world will work differently and it will just seem natural.

The power of such technology is limitless. If we ever stopped to think about it, we'd wonder how we ever got by without it. But eventually, we won't even bother to stop to think about it, any more than we stop to think about how our ears work, or why.

Here's a great illustration of my point, splashed up on the silver screen:

In the movie WALL-E, the robot WALL-E represents our current technology. You can see exactly how he works and it's a mess. He makes simple jobs look very complicated.

Obvious.

EVE, on the other hand is graceful, almost comically streamlined. But she is rippling with the most amazing technology, that only gives itself away by it's effects on the world.

Subcutaneous.

I think the future will be more like EVE, and less like WALL-E.

Incidentally, EVE was designed for the movie by Jon Ive, Apple's head of design, the same guy who led the design of the iPod, iMac, and iPhone. Coincidence? I think not. The movie producers knew what they wanted and they knew he could pull it off. Why? Because he already has.

Eating Lunch With A Wolf

I had lunch with a good friend of mine today named Wolfgang. It was his birthday and we went to New Yasmeen.

Such a great guy. I love chatting with him about almost any subject. Today we talked about Delta Blues, which we both love. Next time it will be space exploration (an interest of his), or guitar techniques (he plays), or maybe photography (he's a good photog from way back in the darkroom days).

I wish I could see Wolf more often, I used to do coffee with him every day because we worked together. But he's retired now and that makes getting together much harder.

Wolf has some of the funniest and most amazing stories to tell and he's a great story teller. I love the one about the Frisbee-cat he found on the farm, squished in between two bails of hay. And don't get him started on the one about his car brakes going out in downtown Romeo and the resulting terror-filled drive on the crowded sidewalk.

He also does the best impersonation of a cadaver I've ever seen a live person do, complete with the shuddering creak of rigor mortis. It's truly inspired.

He's been though quite a bit of hardship, but he takes it all in stride. His first fiancée dumped him right before their wedding. He developed Type I diabetes later in life, which is rare, and his case is particularly hard to control (and the constraints that come with it are pretty much hell for a beer-lover like Wolf).

He also had a tumor the size of a peach removed from his brain about ten years ago which left him with some memory problems (1974 is "a couple years ago" to him and he can't remember the word "doorknob" to save his life). Fortunately it was benign.

Life is full of good times and bad...today's lunch was one of the good ones.

Something Cool Was Going On...

Zach and I arrived home from our respective daytime pursuits, namely school and work, and we knew right away something cool was going on.

Heather met me at the door with the girls and a glass of wine. The house was brimming over with all kinds of great smells. There were candles, and music filled the air. And there was lasagna in the oven. And a very tasty looking peanut butter and chocolate dessert!

Heather had put all this wonderful stuff together in the middle of taking care of the two girls, and she even went shopping to get the ingredients.

And it was all as wonderful as it sounds.

Thanks, Heatherbaby!!! You are the best!!

A Long Time Gone

My father died 24 years ago today. Wow. That's almost a quarter of a century. I miss him all the time. The things he taught me will be with me forever, and even longer because I'm passing them along to my kids.

He was a great man, the best.

Miss you dad.

No Scurvy Here!

Little Heatherbaby Hands

We've noticed that Brooke has miniature versions of Heathers slender hands. Exactly. But smaller.

She Goes To Eleven!

Happy Eleven, Madeline Wrobel!!!

Shelves Of Brookes In The Maddia Center

Maddie and Brooke and HB are at the library right now!

Hitting The Bottle After A Hard Day

Zizzers & Snizzers

When Zach was small he called scissors "Zizzers", and Maddie says "Snizzers". I wonder what Brooke will call them?

Blizzers?

Whizzers?

Znizzers?

Prolific

Sorry about the wave of posts yesterday, but as the great blues guy John Lee Hooker once said:

"I heard papa tell mama, let that boy boogie-woogie. It's in him, and it gots to come out!" - Boogie Chillin', 1948

25 Random Things About Me

I'm doing this for my Facebook peeps:

1. I have better than 20-20 sight and very good color vision, and I probably will for a long time. I've never even been to the eye doctor. It's genetic, much of my family is the same way. This really helps me with #10, below.

2. I am the cook in my family and I love it. My favorites are Mediterranean, Thai, and Indian. Simple, rustic food.

3. I have played guitar since 1984 and I own three guitars, but I'll never be a Steve Vai and that sometimes bothers me.

4. I did once make an Ace Frehley costume for Halloween and then got sick and couldn't wear it.

5. I am not superstitious at all and don't really understand how anyone could be.

6. I love all wine, but especially powerful reds and the Sauvignon Blancs of New Zealand.

7. I love Apple Macs, I'll never buy another Windows computer.

8. I have made 720 batches of Salsa Joe, give or take, and I have given the recipe out to at least a hundred people.

9. I love backpacking in the wilderness of the American Southwest.

10. My greatest love, besides my family, is photography. I love imagery. Capturing it, manipulating it. Getting it to say something. "Convincing" an image to be "more true" than the actual scene.

11. I once had nine pet guinea pigs.

12. I was really good at baseball once upon a time and it's still my favorite sport and the one I'm most likely to watch.

13. I hate watching sports on TV. But I love watching movies...

14. My favorite movie is The Seven Samurai, directed by Akira Kurosawa. This film has been remade as a Western (The Magnificent Seven) and also as a CGI film by Pixar (A Bug's Life). Kurosawa is also mentioned in the BNL song "One Week".

15. My favorite book is The Lord Of The Rings, I have read it several times. I was really scared when they decided to make the movies, but I was happy with the results.

16. I love to swim in tropical water, especially underwater. I grew up loving the water.

17. I used to be a math tutor in college. I love math, especially really challenging math like Eigenvectors and Differential Equations. I'm sick that way.

18. I love raw fish, especially mackerel.

19. I have had panic attacks since childhood, but have learned how to control them.

20. My favorite music is the old delta blues of Son House, Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton, Willie McTell, Willie Johnson, and Blind Lemon Jefferson.

21. I love blogging about my life & family and I hope one day my kids will read it when they get older.

22. I am very shy on the inside, but not so much on the outside anymore.

23. I once designed jet engines in Arizona.

24. I can no longer recall what my father's voice sounded like.

25. I often dream that my mother is still alive and I am always very sad when I wake up and find that she isn't. It's my most common dream.

Bladdermates

Have you ever found yourself on the same bathroom schedule as a co-worker? Today I have noticed that the periodicity of my urges lines up with a guy from the set of cubes immediately west of me; I have seen him in the bathroom every time I have had to go today.

I'm drinking a lot of coffee nowadays and I'm pretty sure he does too. Which means we probably have pretty close to the exact same bladder size, give or take a few milliliters.

Either that or he's following me around.

Yikes. Personally, I prefer my "bladder-size" theory.

Light Up, Everybody

The last time I went to a concert with Ingrid, she got a nasty burn from the lighter she was using to show her support for REO.

With less people smoking and more people mobile-chatting now, you see more cell phones than lighters being used for this effect at concerts nowadays. So I suppose it was only a matter of time before Zippo came out with this nifty Phone app. Same sounds, and same dancing flame as a real lighter, it responds to movement and even breath.

But with 100% less burned fingers. :)

Me @ Work

I look bored, don't I? I'm just relaxed, having dodged another layoff.

Hue Today, Green Tomorrow?

Ok, let's vote. This is an unretouched photo taken at just over two months of age. Will Brooke's eyes go brown, stay blue, or veer off in another direction?

I vote blue.

2012

There is something I feel I need to get out of the way now, so you can all enjoy the next few years.

Yes, the Mayan calendar is rolling over it's 5,126 year cycle in late December 2012.

No, the world is not going to end.

Even if thousands or millions of people believe it.

Even if they make a movie about it.

Relax.

Assignment: Dal Soup

First, get out your oldest, gnarliest, most beaten up and blackened iron pot. Heat that old pan up to atmosphere-reentry temperature.

Take you a big yellow onion. Chop it into choppy bits. Ladle some peanut oil into the big black pot and put those very same onions in it. If they scream, simply ignore them and go about your business of making Dal Soup.

Now walk your buns over to your well-stocked spice cabinet and get out a teaspoon each of ground fenugreek, ground coriander, and mango powder (amchur), and a half teaspoon each of turmeric and crushed black pepper. While you are in there, bring out a couple of black cardamoms too. You should be smelling like Madagascar right about now.

Um...go stir those damned onions before you burn them and have to start over! You should have known better. Grr. Turn the heat down if you need extra time due to age or infirmary.

Time to go play with the food processor. Throw in several cloves of garlic, an inch or two of fresh ginger, 5 or 6 long skinny green finger chilies, and some water. Let her rip. If nothing happens, bend over and plug it in. Make as smooth a paste as you can.

Mosey you over to the stove and stir up them onions again. But this time, when you are done, instead of goofing off, stir in the spices. Keep stirring for a whole minute. Then add the garlic paste and stir like your life depends on it.

Your neighbors should now be smelling this.

Before the garlic burns, add lentils. Not just any lentils, and certainly not those brown ones you found in the rice aisle at Meijer. No, you want to add the good ones: Masoor Dal. They should look tiny, split, and bathed in a brilliant sunset orange color. Put two cups of them into the pot, and stir some more.

Chop a couple tomatoes up. No, seriously, do it now.

Tired of stirring yet? Too bad. Stir some more.

After 30 seconds or so, add some water or chicken broth. Hmm, maybe 4 or 5 cups, you can always adjust it later. Also put in about a teaspoon of sea salt and the tomatoes.

You guessed it, stir.

Now reach down and turn the heat to low. Cover up this beastly pot of south Indian goodness and let it simmer there on the fire for about 20 minutes. Make sure you check every now and then to make sure you didn't short change the poor thing on the water, that would be bad.

While this is all going on, grab that sharp knife and chop some cilantro up into little choppy bits. And when I say some cilantro, I mean like a big handful. If you don't like cilantro, don't just leave it out. Go over to the stove, grab the pot, and throw the whole thing down the sink. Then go get you a hamburger. You can't make this without cilantro.

After your requisite 20 minutes have passed, open the lid, smell the wonderfulness, adjust the liquid and salt if needed, and add the cilantro. Also add the juice of 1 or two lemons. Maybe even three if you like it sour like I do.

Lastly, stir in about 1/4 teaspoon of garam masala if you have some. It will help.

Now scream up the family and serve this to them. They'll love you for it.

Forked

You probably won't ever take food off your fork and go put it under the microscope.

But if you did, this is what you would not want to see.

In The Trenches

This old camera saw action in World War I. Isn't that amazing? I wonder what it "saw". I wonder who used it. I wonder where all the pictures went.

I wonder.

Moses Knows Lettuce

I had another strange dream last night, the kind that comes from a crazy place and haunts me long after it has been splattered across my brain with the hammer of consciousness.

Moe Howard (That was his stooge name, his real name was Moses Horowitz), sat slouched in a big leather chair in front of me. He was talking at a very fast pace, and using his hands for effect, coaching me in great detail on how to properly prepare lettuce for feeding to a guinea pig. He glanced at me occasionally and paused, but wouldn't really look me in the eye. I got the feeling he was nervous.

Out of the blue, I asked him about his death in the 70's and he just brushed my question off, a little irritated that I didn't want to know all about the best way to tear lettuce so that it doesn't turn bitter.

He was in full color. He had clear blue eyes. I asked him if color felt any differently than black & white to be living in. He looked at me like I was the stooge.

He started talking about the different types of lettuce and which ones pleased the guinea pigs most, based on cost, vitamins, and water content.

I wondered why a guinea pig would care about the cost of lettuce.

Eventually I steered the conversation back to the dead-thing, because I was pretty sure I had read that he died sometime in the mid 1970's.

He just looked at me and said "Oh shit. Fine", and disappeared.

Even Royalty Needs To Eat

The Lonely, Naked Tomatillo

Good name for a children's book?

Carcharodon Carcharias

This is the shark picture I am going to use as a model for Zach's room painting.

Getting Ready For College

Lisa shows Maddie how to make Margaritas. Turns out Maddie is a good lime squeezer.

Just Looking Around

Steaming Hot

This is the cool new bowl Zach gave me for Christmas, shown here filled with a spicy and garlicky batch of "Lupita's Salsa" still hot from the stove.

A Quiet Moment In The Forest Corner

The New Man

We had Lisa and her brand-spanking-new boyfriend over for a Mexican feast last night. Turns out he's a really nice guy, and he loved playing with the kids. Zach gave him quite a going-over too, just to test his mettle. He hit the poor guy with wrestling, tug of war, and a few iPod Touch games all in rapid-fire succession. Maddie got into the fray too.

He liked my cooking and my pictures, beyond the new-boyfriend politeness I think. He didn't waste any time helping me out in the kitchen, he made some of the corn tortillas and he brought really good tequila so I think he's a keeper!

But I guess that's really up to Lisa. :)

Unfortunately we don't have much in the way of photographic evidence that this guy really exists.

The Fleece & The Tutu

Two-Way Street

The other day I wrote about how much I like to read to Zach.

He likes it too, judging by this email he sent me last night:

I loved super fudge and I can't
Wait to read another one with
You! Love you, by

Zach

Ben Ten

Happy birthday Ben, from the Wild Fam!!!

Of Mice And Garbage Cans

Today is the 25th birthday of the computer that showed the world what a computer could do.

A young Steve Jobs introduced the Macintosh on January 24, 1984 and nothing like it had ever been seen before. It was approachable. It didn't look like a computer. And there was that funny device on the end of a cord called a mouse. You could use that mouse to interact with the computer directly instead of having to type everything out. There was a cute trash can to throw away unneeded documents. There was a menu bar at the top with various options dropping down when clicked on. Everything was graphical. These interface elements are all completely common in computers today.

But in 1984 they were radical.

Apple used a great TV commercial to introduce the world to Macintosh. Based on the George Orwell book and played at the 1984 Super Bowl, it's still considered one of the greatest commercials of all time, even for the Super Bowl.

The first Mac was a design revelation, for sure. But as good as it was, today's Macs are light years ahead of them in just about every area.

The reason for that is that Apple, unlike me, is not sentimental. They never, ever look back.

Pickle's Peepers

Brooke's steel-blue eyes are very pretty. We're taking bets on what color they settle on. We don't think they'll be brown anymore, but Heather's are green so they could tint in that direction. I'm guessing they'll stay pale dark blue. Whatever color they end up, we'll always love staring at them.

Marlins & The Baseball

I love to read to Zach at night. It's almost the only time we get to do something "just the two of us". Great books too, like The Hobbit, Spiderwick Chronicles, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Moby Dick, and War of The Worlds (the last three of these were children's versions). We also read Michigan Chillers and Judy Blume's "Fudge" books.

Recently we did The Old Man And The Sea which is one of my favorite books. I wasn't sure how much he would like it, it's a wonderful story but not full of explosions or monsters - it's very introspective.

But he LOVED it. He instantly appreciated Hemingway's writing style: descriptive and yet sparse. It's a very "manly" book, and Santiago became a sort of hero for Zach. He appreciated the humor too, the old man constantly admonishing his "traitorous" left hand, or his Cuban manner of speaking (he follows "The Baseball" in the newspapers).

I have heard that it is very important to read to boys Zach's age, that it can make a big difference in whether or not they become lifelong readers. And books offer so much for so little that I don't want him to miss out on that. I can't imagine what my life would be like without all the great books I've read safely tucked away in my brain.

Here are some titles I am considering for possible future reading with Zach:

Gateway by Frederick Pohl
Ringworld by Larry Niven
The Lord of The Rings by JRR Tolkien
A Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
and of course, American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

...Just kidding on that last one :)

Suggestions are always welcome.

You Just Can't Have Too Much Princess

Broken Ties

Zach never got to say goodbye to Jake.

We knew Coco was leaving and Zach was here right before so he could come to grips with losing her. But I told him we'd probably have Jake for a week or so. He pleaded with me to let him keep Jake if he tried to take care of him more. But as it worked out, Jake left us the same day Coco did.

We're going to try to have a get-together with Jake this weekend so Zach can see him and properly say his goodbyes. It's all very sad.

The Littlest One

Brooke, at 2 months! You know, I think her eyes might decide to stay blue after all.

Two

A little Photoshop fun for today. I had this idea to combine two things I love together into one image.

I call it..."Boobs and Wine!"

:)

P.S. Just kidding, y'all!

Just Be Cos

One more wine bottle today...this is my reject picture from the wine tasting invitation. I ended up using something else.

Princess Peeking

Imagine my pleasant surprise, working in my office and looking up to see my little princess watching me.

I'm glad I had several cameras nearby.

Cooking With Gas

Zach's Gang

Angels, Sleeping

Drinking Hemp @ Lotus

A glass of very high alcohol hemp beer at one of our favorite local pubs.

Phineas Fly

We have a sort of pet fly. Sort of. Well, he's dead, and has been since we moved in. But we still see him every day.

You see, he's stuck to the outside of the dining area door window, and he's stuck good. The torrential rain didn't loose him. Nor did winds strong enough to uproot trees. Sunshine, snow, heat, light, all mean nothing to him.

Normally I'd just go out there and remove him, but we have no deck , the door doesn't open yet, and he's pretty far off the ground.

So there he sits.

Heather named him Phineas Fly. We've grown attached to him, much as he's grown attached to our window.

Every day we check to make sure he's still there, watching our backs.

86

We are dangerously low (or even out) of many of my necessary herbs and spices. I need these flavors to create the meals my family has come to love me for. I am like an artist with only blue paint, and the royal family expects a masterpiece.

This severely spice-deprived state has driven me far deeper into my spice cupboard than I have ventured in quite some time. I am using fenugreek and annatto, charnuska and black cardamom in new and sometimes crazy ways! I suppose hardship really does force a "growing of the art". I know I am making things in ways that I wouldn't if the old standbys of coriander and cumin were right there in front of me.

So, strap the Malamutes up to the sled, a serious expedition to Penzeys is required, for sure. But I think I'll try to keep this new spirit of discovery alive after we restock.

A sort of aromatic silver lining in the storm clouds of empty spice jars.

Quasimodad

Madison sleeps about as well as a raccoon on caffeine. She hates going to bed and it's a rare night when we don't wake up to find her in our bed, attached to Heather's back like a dorsal fin.

Worse, she has taken to thinking of me as some kind of monster. When I notice she is awake and go into her room at night to try to keep her there, she belts out blood-curdling screams like I was a humpbacked bell-ringer with leprosy. I retreat from her room back to my belfry, reduced and belittled.

Not the welcome I would hope for actually. Please let this be a phase.