Author: Gerry

Categories
Computers

What’s Up With Pulse?

I’ve been using the Pulse reader for as long as I’ve had my Nook tablets. I installed it on my original Tablet and now my HD. For the reading I do, it’s better than a browser since all those sites already have RSS feeds that I can hook into. Overall, I’ve been very pleased with it.

But the recent update leaves something to be desired. For one, I don’t like the extra manipulations to switch between RSS categories. The previous version had a menu up top where a simple touch took me to whatever category I’d wanted. Now, I have to either push the button up top, which launches a side menu with a list of my categories for me to select from. Alternatively, I can swipe from the left edge to bring up this menu. That extra action is not appreciated. Also, the edge-swipe version is annoying because it can get confused with either refreshing a feed or scrolling through a feed’s articles.

The bigger problem, though, is that app is not stable. It constantly bails on me and the only reason I put up with it is because there isn’t any other option available to me. In particular, switching to and from a web view seems to be particularly difficult for it to manage.

A couple of other issues:

  1. When tapping on an article to read, it will frequently bring up an empty screen, causing me to go back to the tile view where I’ll have to reselect the article again and hope for the best.

  2. When bring up an article, there is a Read on Web button which, upon tapping, provides no feedback as to whether the press has registered. It’s annoying behavior since it will not infrequently result in nothing happening, so I’ll tap it again. And again. And again. There is no usual resolution to this “feature”: sometimes the app crashes, sometimes a press registers, sometimes I just give up.

  3. I like to use the Twitter functionality, but the tweet dialog box has a horrible font color which is only a shade darker than the background, meaning I have to strain my eyes, squint and use smoke and mirrors to compose a tweet.

  4. Tapping on web links frequently results in nothing happening or an app crash.

I’ve used the updated version on both my Tablet and my HD, with the same problems apparent in both so I don’t think this is a Android version issue per say. Looking at the reviews at the app site, I can see I’m not the only one. Hopefully they get some kind of improved version in the pipeline soon.

Categories
Family

Passing the Tongs

One thing the Wife and I both are proud of regarding the kids is their level of self-sufficiency, particularly where food is concerned. It’s not like they’re outside killing and cooking squirrels for snacks or anything, although the boy does have a bow and arrow. But they prepare their own lunches for school, prepare their own breakfasts and not infrequently help with dinners.

Tonight, the Wife decided on steaks for dinner, so I decided to let the boy do the bulk of the steak cooking. Grilling is one culinary area where the Wife has little to no interest in learning. Thus, I do all of the grilling so it was a simple matter to pull the boy in on the project.

A fortunate aspect of grilling steaks is it’s quick. From the time the grill comes up to temp, it takes maybe 10 minutes depending on how thick the steaks are. Thus, attention span is almost a non-issue- he does have to wait for the steaks to cook on each side.

I only had to give him a couple pointers regarding using the tongs. He wanted to hold them close to the grabbing end; kind of defeats the purpose of having the long tongs. Once he figured that out, and I realized that I had to hold the plate low enough for him to easily grab the meat off the plate, he was in good shape. We passed the time tossing snowballs for a bit then he flipped the steaks. I explained the basic idea for cooking steaks: getting the grill as hot as possible then cooking each side for a few minutes so that the steak is cooked but still tender in the middle.

Not to be outdone, the lass learned how to cook “mushroom rice.” This is a particularly tasty version of rice that uses beef consumme and butter along with sliced mushrooms when cooking the rice. It’s very tasty and one of the lass’ favorites. It’s also pretty easy for her to help with since it basically consists of dumping everything into a bowl. While she was at it, she also took care of setting the table.

When all was said and done, the Wife and I had a nice meal more or less prepared by the kids. Pretty good stuff. They aren’t ready to take over just yet, but they’re a step closer than they were.

Categories
Misc

Interesting Profile of a Pickpocket

Via Instapundit, an article about a performing pickpocket. Really interesting stuff and not the first time I’ve read about this connection between neuroscience and magic. Basically, scientists are breaking down magic routines to study how our attention can be manipulated, and thus theorize on how it actually works.

Here’s the best bit in the whole article:

“I been playing since I was knee-high to a shit-ball,” he said. “At first, I was a moll buzzer. I used to play in the ghetto. Then I started playing Skokie, then I started playing downtown in the Loop. They got Shot-Jims down there, and if you can play at that level and beat a chump, right there on the corner in front of they face- believe me, you can play.”

That’s a quote from another pickpocket mentioned in the article. You’ll have to go read the article for a translation.

Categories
Misc Notweet

3

As in degrees, right now. It was actually warmer an hour ago, a whopping 5. I think it might start warming from here, but it’s been awhile since its been this cold.

Cool stuff, er, literally.

Categories
Family

Persistence and Patience

When I was a wee lad, probably about the boy’s age come to think of it, I would get writing assignments. I remember enjoying writing even then. I don’t think I had any particular gift for it or anything, but I read a fair amount and I also tried to write and I… just enjoyed it. I remember once sitting and starting to copy a book of animal fables. I don’t really recall the reason. Perhaps I was thinking that I really was writing in that delusional way kids look at the world. What else was I going to do, play with a DS?

My Mom was an English teacher, as fate allowed. So when I got my writing assignments from school and brought them home, I always had a writing hurdle to overcome. Mom would mercilessly cut through the words on the paper. “This isn’t a sentence. This is misspelled. This is OK, but confusing. You’ve written the same thing 5 different ways in one paragraph. There’s no structure. What were you supposed to be writing here?” By the time she got done with my initial cut, the page would look more like a wiring diagram or a blue print, anything but the alleged text I initially put down. It’s what she’s not an editor here on the blog…

Naturally, being an immature know-it-all, I took it well and cried.

By the time I was done fixing all the mistakes she’d pointed out I never felt like the paper was mine. I felt like it was hers. This was, of course, a crock on my part. She never told me what to write. She just guided me in the art of writing something that was minimally readable. But at the time, I recall the frustration of having my work ripped up like that. Looking back, I’m certain there was a personal aspect to it as well. When effort is put into something, it can be hard to accept criticism without taking it personally. All those lines and circles and comments make you feel stupid. They aren’t just lines on a paper, they’re lines on you and how you think and how you express yourself.

Like I said, immature.

I thought of all this today when the Wife was describing how she helped the boy through another writing assignment. It was the classic “What Did I Do on my Christmas Vacation” assignment. It’s due in a couple of days and before I headed out for a little sparring training tonight, I told the boy, as nonchalantly as I could lest I wake the insecurity beast within, he should organize his thoughts on paper; then write a rough draft that his Mom or I could read through and help him with; then write his final paper.

When I got home, to my astonishment, he’d written a page-and-a-half of text about his Christmas vacation. I read through it quickly and immediately picked out a number of misspellings, some capitalization issues, some punctuation issues and a couple of sentence fragments. That might sound like a lot, but it didn’t require any real structural changes or major rewrites. To his credit, it was well organized and readable and pretty close to a finished product, with few corrections I mentioned.

The boy was (quelle suprise!) upset that I’d picked out all those mistakes. Particularly with the spelling errors. We decided he could finish the corrections tomorrow night. After he’d gone to bed, the Wife described how she’d worked with him to get the almost-finished-product I’d read: eliminating the run-on sentences and the “And then we…” phrases, helping him decided what stuff to put in the paper, helping him organize it. She showed me the marked up first draft.

Somewhere around then, I realized the importance of quiet persistence. His reaction to my comments was emotional, as were mine those many years ago. But Mom’s persistence paid off and I internalized many of those lessons. It wasn’t something that occurred in one lesson, it was the cumulative act of writing, then breaking down what I’d written and forcing myself to think about what I wanted to say and how I wanted to tell it over many years that got me to the point where I could sit down and structure a paper or essay. Reading didn’t hurt either.

Similarly, the boy won’t all of a sudden have a light switch come on and start churning out prose like Nora Roberts. Rather, it will be the steady drip-drip-drip of forcing him to confront what he’s done and improve upon it.

Patience. Persistence.

Categories
BBQ

Further Notes on Smoker

Alright, cooked my first batch of baby back ribs using the smoker today. They came out OK, but I think I can do better. More importantly, I learned a few more things about using the smoker.

  1. Cooking when it’s cold and windy is difficult. Trying to dial in a specific temperature is very difficult to almost impossible because of all the variables: fuel, wind, outside temp.

  2. I used the water bowl today for the first time and I’m not sure what it gained me other than a lot of steam. I’d read it helped to keep the temperature down, but that wasn’t entirely obvious to me. That might have more to do with the less than ideal barbecuing conditions though. It’s just too hard to tell at the moment.

  3. I’ve read that the fuel door on the side of the unit has been made bigger. Well, I’d like it to be bigger yet. Also, adding water to the bowl seemed almost impossible from the door. I had to lift the lid and poor the water down through the grills- this seemed less than ideal.

  4. The thermometer in the dome is nice, but would be a lot nicer if it was measuring the temps down at the grill level. Ideally, both grill levels. I don’t have any feel for how well the air is actually mixed in the grill- my assumption is the temps are higher at the grill level since they are so much closer to the heat source.

  5. Even though conditions weren’t optimal today, dialing in a specific temperature is not easy. Do I close the bottom vents to slow the burn, or do I close the top vent? Does opening the top one just allow heat to leave or does it mainly provide for the draft? How long do I wait to see how the temp is affected by a change in the vents?

  6. I got about 5 hours of heat on my initial load, and then an additional 3 hours after adding more briquettes. But, I wasn’t able to recover the heat level I wanted after refueling. Not sure what to do there.

  7. BE CAREFUL MIXING THE COALS. It kicks up the ash and will likely end up on the food. Bleck.

The ribs were still good. They cooked for about 7 1/2 hours or so. Getting things started was easy and I only lifted the lid to add water, so the overall operation was much nicer. I still was monitoring the temperature pretty frequently, but that pails by comparison to what I had to do with the Weber kettle style grill.

As for the ribs, I applied a rub to them last night and left them in the fridge overnight. The rub consisted of brown sugar(1 cup), onion powder(1 tsp), garlic powder(1 tsp), paprika(1/2 tsp), cumin(1/2 tsp), chipotle pepper(1/4 tsp), cayenne pepper(1/8 tsp), orange peel(1/2 tsp). I also salted the ribs prior to applying the rub. I cut each rack in half and then placed the ribs in a vertical stacker on the top rack. When done cooking, they were pretty tender and the meat came off the bone with little effort.

That said, I’ve done better. The meat can be more tender, but that will require me to get a better gauge of the temps inside the smoker and also to get better control of the smoker temps as well. Overall, not a bad first attempt- both kids ate them without complaint if that’s any measure. I’ve got more racks in the freezer to learn with.

Categories
Misc

Happy New Years!

Welcome to the new year, may it be full of good cheer, good friends and good times.

Categories
Admin

Sledding

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what are GIF’s worth?

thelass.gif

Click on the image to see the GIF.

theboy

Click on the image to see the GIF.

Categories
Misc

Snow on the Brain

I made a mistake.

On Friday evening, I told the boy it was supposed to snow the next day, which now is yesterday- Saturday. Not only did I tell him but I foolishly parroted more or less the exact forecast down to the start time and amounts. I may as well have told him that a second Christmas had been scheduled.

He spent the rest of that evening double checking that it was still going to snow. It was as if he’d decided that he needed to maintain vigilance on the matter, lest the foretold events not come to pass. He double checked the snowfall amounts, the start time, the end time. He was particularly fascinated by the end time, confirming on multiple occasions that the snow would end Sunday morning at 7, rather than Saturday morning at 7 (even though the start time wasn’t supposed to be until Saturday morning at 11).

When he woke up on yesterday, he wanted to look at a weather map and ensure that it was still supposed to snow. Perhaps he was concerned that his 10 hour slumber had allowed the probability fields to shift such that no snow was coming, or not as much, or- worst of all- that it would fall as rain.

It finally started in the mid-afternoon hours. I happened to look out and the first sporadic flakes were falling. Big, fluffy cotton balls from the sky that disintegrated on contact with the ground. I pointed outside and made a face like the people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Both kids laughed, but then the boy rushed to look at the thermometer, wanting to make sure it would not turn to rain.

The start of the snow was the end of the worrying. The boy was noticeably more relaxed as the snowfall proceeded through the afternoon. His vigilance and wishing was paying off. It was now only a question of “How much?” not “Will it?” But the “How much?” question is more pleasant to fret over. It’s like momentum- once getting things moving, they tend to want to stay that way. Now that the snow was falling and the hard part was over.

By the time they went to bed, there was about 6 inches on the ground. The boy had been monitoring the situation and was keenly aware the amount now exceeded the prediction I’d given him the day before. Even better- the snow continued to fall without any sign of letting up. He went to bed easily, dreaming of snowmen, snowballs and sledding.

Here’s what he awoke to:

All pictures courtesy of the Wife and her Canon EOS60D.

Categories
Computers

Thoughts on the Nook HD

My big Christmas gift was a new Nook HD, the updated version of the previous Nook Tablet. So far, the biggest disappointment is a less than obvious way to root the sucker. It has been done, but I’m not clear on whether it’s a permanent thing like can be done on the Tablet.

That said, it’s definitely an improvement. Almost all of the UI stuff is better including responsiveness, scrolling and speed. This isn’t entirely surprising since it’s based on the version of Android that supposed to have been a big breakthrough in terms of performance and polish. The HD is also lighter than the Tablet, which is noticeable when reading. It has a better feel when holding it one handed as well. Physically, I kind of liked the old carabiner look- it was distinctive and unique. But I’m not going to pitch any fits over it’s loss.

A pleasant discovery was that K-9, my email program of choice, is available from the Barnes and Noble store. It’s vastly superior to the stock program currently available. The HD also comes with calendar support, though so far I haven’t been successful in getting it to import my Google Calendar. The Store also now has Calengoo available, but I already purchased it from the Amazon Market, so I’m kind of holding out a bit before I repurchase it.

Another pleasant surprise was how all my previous purchases were immediately available upon entering my account information. In that, Barnes and Noble did well.

The screen is the other big differentiator and I have to say that it’s vastly improved from a reader perspective. Reading the small text is much easier on the eyes than on the previous Tablet, and I always felt the Tablet had a pretty damn good screen. The HD’s blows it away.

Battery life seems to be a bit worse than with the Tablet, I’m sorry to say. It’s not awful and I may be able to tweak it a bit to lend myself some improvement there, but it’s definitely not the same.

In all, it’s definitely an improved experience. If you’re looking for a general tablet, I wouldn’t recommend it until a reliable rooting procedure is available. But if you want a good reader, then it would be hard to beat the Nook HD.

Categories
Armoire Notweet Woodworking

The Armoire- A Mistake

I thought I was done with the armoire, but as it turned out I made a mistake in my design. The mistake turns out to be obvious enough in hind sight, and it was easily remedied. This is more a matter of jotting it down so I remember for the next time this situation arrives.

The problem had everything to do with the drawers. They are large, solid wood doors made of maple, cherry and cedar on the bottoms. The shear size of them (nearly 3 1/2 feet wide and 2 feet deep) necessitated larger dimensions on all of the pieces, including the bottom which I made 3/8″ thick. The larger pieces means more weight, even before they get loaded up with whatever.

The drawers are mounted on Blum invisible drawer slides. These slides mount to the sides of the cabinet, but then hook under the drawer so when the drawer is pulled out the slides themselves are not seen.

To support the runners attached to the cabinet, I fashioned rails for attaching the slides. Those rails were mortised into the posts at the front and rear of the lower cabinet space. And that’s where the problem occurred. The glue holding those rails in place in their mortises let go under the combination of the weight of the drawers and the active, day-to-day usage of them. Because they let go, the drawers sagged and would hit the rails on the front that defined the drawer openings. The problem got so bad that one of the clips that attaches to the drawer itself, and then to the drawer slide, was knocked off of the drawer and made using the drawer basically impossible.

So, the fix was simple. First, I used a single screw in each end of the rails to reattach them to the post. Now, there’s not way for the rail to fail short of it actually breaking. Next, to make sure there is enough clearance, I reattached the drawers slide a little higher. The combination of fixes took care of the problem and the drawers work like new again.

The mistake I made was in not using the proper mechanical joint for attaching the rails. I should have used a sliding dovetail design instead of a straight up mortise. My assumption was I just need joint strength in the vertical direction. As it turned out, there was also a moment that I had to account for due to the drawer activity. A sliding dovetail would have handled the problem splendidly, pinning the rail into the post with no chance of it breaking out. Something for me to keep in mind for the next project I work on.

Categories
Family

Biting the Hand that Feeds You

One thing I’ve noticed about our kids is they have big mouths. Actually, my sense is this isn’t anything unusual and is more a normal kid thing. Possibly, it signals that they don’t get in trouble too much for running their mouths and therefore aren’t inhibited about saying whatever burbles up from the darkest recesses of their little minds. It could also just be that they don’t know when to shut up.

The lass had an amusing moment on Christmas day involving her Grandfather. One of her delights after a visit is to search the seat cushions for spare change that might have fallen from pockets. While sitting and watching the movie, she made a comment to her Grandfather that she was always finding coins after he left.

Later, he told the Wife that he was extra careful to make sure the change in his pockets was stuffed way down to the bottom and that the pockets weren’t riding up to dumping level. I don’t know if he performed an inventory as well- likely not. He was more amused by the exchange than anything.

Obviously, her loquaciousness redounded to his benefit. On the other hand, she won’t be finding spare change in the seat cushions anymore.

Categories
Family

A Merry Christmas Day

Christmas day was a pleasant affair this year. Not that that’s unusual, but it just stuck me this year more than other years. Though, it didn’t start that way.

Our adventure started the night before, at bedtime on Christmas Eve. They were excited and we’d already opened presents to from one another and to one another. All that was left to wait on the Big Guy. The lass had no trouble drifting off like it was any other night.

The boy was an altogether different story.

His excitement was such that he couldn’t fall asleep like he normally does. Once out of that comfort zone, he started to worry. And once he started worrying, well, he couldn’t stop. It was around 9:30 or so that I noticed he was quietly weeping in his bed. When I asked him what was wrong, he simply whimpered that he couldn’t fall asleep.

When he get likes that, it really becomes a matter for the Wife to deal with. I don’t have much time for weeping over these sort of things and I was likely to not be all that understanding. Getting harsh with him on Christmas Eve didn’t seem like a sporting thing to do, so I went downstairs and apprised the Wife of the situation. She went up to try and help him out.

When she came down, she dropped the bad news: he was worried that because he couldn’t fall asleep Santa wouldn’t come because Santa can’t come until after they’ve fallen asleep. So he was going to ruin Christmas. It was a vicious circle because the longer he went without sleeping, the more upset he got because he became more convinced he wouldn’t fall asleep. Rinse. Repeat. Weep.

Time ticked away. The boy remained awake. The Wife and I both assumed he would eventually collapse from shear exhaustion. But the longer it took, the more it seemed like it would take. We knew it would be an early morning; thus, neither of us had planned on a late night. But it was getting late. As the night wore on, we were both extra vigilant for the sound of footsteps, since the boy particularly will on occasion just pop downstairs when he’s having trouble sleeping. He’d already called down from the top of the stairs earlier to inform us he couldn’t sleep. All we needed was for him to waltz down the steps already upset.

Finally, around 11:15, I turned off our Pandora. We’d had it playing all day and allowed it to continue after we’d put the kids to bed because we wanted some sound cover for our setup activities downstairs. We heard the boy get up and go to the bathroom and then go back to bed. We waited longer and finally decided enough was enough. We both finally headed to bed around 11:45. There was no noise coming from his room, so we assumed he was safely asleep.

I was up briefly at 4 to deal with the fire. I was as discreet as possible, since I didn’t want the kids coming down; my plan was to get some wood on the fire and go back to bed. It worked.

We first heard them head down around 5. The Wife said both of them poked their heads in our room shortly thereafter. We’d told them both not to wake us and not to open any presents until we were all downstairs. The Wife and I both tried to get some more sleep, but they were both loud enough to make getting back to sleep impossible. The Wife gave in first. I followed a short time after around 6AM.

The present opening festivities were well done this year. In past years, it’s been an explosion of paper and gifts, with extended cleanup efforts afterwards. This year, they set about their business like seasoned veterans- they’d done it before and wanted to prolong the experience. They took turns opening gifts, working together to pull things our from under the tree. They were civil, they were excited. It was fun actually. The Wife and I downed a couple of cups of coffee while they did their thing.

The remainder of the day was spent with them exploring their various gifts. The Wife’s parents arrived around 11 and her Aunt arrived in the early evening. Despite his late night and early rise, the boy made it through the entire day without a nap. That was more than could be said for his Grandparents. And me. The lass also managed to negotiate the entire day without any naps. We watched a few movies and had an early dinner. The guests headed out shortly after the kids went to bed.

When the dust settled, the Wife and I sat down and enjoyed a quiet rest-of-the-evening. The boy had no trouble falling asleep Christmas night. Christmas had come and gone, nothing to worry about anymore. We had no trouble falling asleep either. A Merry Christmas for all.

Hope yours was a Merry Christmas as well.

Categories
Family

Final Letters to Santa

Both kids are in bed now. They’ve setup Santa with a nice spread of cookies and also supplied 9 mini carrots for his reindeer. They’ve also put a big bowl of water out on the deck for them as well.

The lass has 3 letters for Santa. The first:

Dear Santa,

Sparky has bin eating to much JUNK food
he ate a candy cane and skittles and a Tootsie Roll and a cookie.
Santa give Sparky a apple.

From: the lass

The second:

Dear Santa

We are going to store Sparky gift upstairs.

Sparky I hope you like your gift

To: Santa

From: the lass

And third:

Dear Santa Clause,

Thank you for the present that you are gave me.

Frim: the lass

The boy wrote one final letter:

Dear Santa Clause,

Thank you for all of the presents they are all really nice. I think you and your elves are the best toy makers.

Tell Sparky I will really miss him.

Sincerely, the boy

As always, spelling and punctuation (or lack thereof) are preserved from the source material. The lass’ final letter also has a drawing of Santa and his sleigh along with 1 reindeer. She also drew a separate picture of Santa flying through the night in his sleigh, complete with stars and a big sack of presents on the back of his sleigh.

Categories
BBQ

Smoked Chicken and Lamb

So, I received a Christmas gift a bit early this year. My parents got us a Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker. We received it on Thursday and I set it up Friday. Unlike some comments I’d read, I had no issues with assembly due to incorrect parts or missing parts. My only regret is that I didn’t wait for the boy to help me assemble it.

I was advised to cure the smoker prior to using it, so yesterday I purchased some Kingsford charcoal and let it rip. Basically, I filled the bottom with a half-bag and planned on letting it burn out and leave it at that. I didn’t bother putting any water in the bowl.

The Wife had pulled out some chicken thighs for dinner and as the afternoon wore on and the grill cooked, I started thinking it would be a waste of all that heat if I didn’t cook something with it. The curing advise I’d read and heard involved cooking some fatty meats to get the inside of the smoker good and greased up. Chicken thighs are pretty fatty, so I figured what the heck.

I let the WSM run wide open, so the temp on the dome thermometer read around 300F. I suspect the temp at the grill level was something hotter than that, but in a sense it’s irrelevant. The main thing is I ran it wide open and as hot as I could get it. The chicken took about 50 minutes to cook. When we served it, both kids had second helpings of the thighs, and everyone commented it was the best they’d had. The Wife, particularly, was impressed because I typically kill them on the gas grill, but here they were very tender and tasty.

So score that one a victory.

Cooking attempt 2 took place tonight or, more correctly, this afternoon. The Wife had prepared leg of lamb and she’d intended for me to grill it. Emboldened by yesterday’s success, I opted to use the WSM to cook it. Rather than running it hot, I opted to run it at about 250F as read on the dome thermometer. I put the lamb on the top grill and fiddled with the lower vents to get a consistent temperature. Once there, I put three chunks of maple wood on the coals. As with the chicken, I didn’t fill the bowl with water.

I also made sure to stick a probe in the lamb so I could monitor the internal temp. One thing I learned from the chicken is that when cooking, don’t remove the cover. Especially when using the upper most grill. All the heat disappears and it takes time to get things back up to temp. I didn’t want to have any problems wit the lamb, thus the temperature probe.

It took about two-and-a-half-hours before the probe read 155F. I pulled the lamb off and let it rest for about 10 minutes prior to serving. It was tender and cooked to about medium, with quite a bit of red meat. Tonight, the reviews were more mixed. The Wife didn’t like the smokey flavor and neither did the lass. The boy had a couple of helpings, as did I. Actually, for that matter, so did the Wife. For my part, I didn’t think the smoke flavor was that powerful, but I’m probably not the best judge.

So I think we’ll have to score that one a draw.

But even with only two uses under my belt, I’m excited about the possibilities. Prior to this, I’d used our Weber Kettle grill for this type of cooking and, frankly, did so rarely because it’s pretty time intensive. I’d constantly be monitoring the temperature and fiddling, plus I was constantly removing the lid to add charcoal to keep things going for longer cooks.

With the WSM, the entire operation is much easier. The side door will make it straight forward to add fuel for longer cooks, and not having to remove the lid will maintain the temperature while doing so. The grates on the bottom and the dome combine to make getting a consistent temperature much easier. Temperature monitoring is easy with the dome thermometer as accuracy isn’t as important as knowing that it’s consistent. For more sensitive cooks, like the today with the lamb, I can just use a probe.

So, I expect I’ll be doing much more experimenting with BBQ this year. In fact, I’ve created a new category here on the blog to help me keep track of my experiments. Right now, there’s a bunch of baby backs sitting in the freezer, waiting…

Categories
Politics

More on Guns

I don’t have anything I’d put into an essay, but I have a lot of stray thoughts regarding the current “debate.” And yes, I’m being sarcastic because gun control advocates aren’t interested in a debate- they want to do something, anything. The only “debate” they want is how far they should go and the notion that other options event exist is completely out of bounds.

Before I list my gun control thoughts, I’ll also note that the current “debate” is following a similar arc to previous ones. Namely, Democrats come up with a problem they want to deal with and the “debate” starts. When it becomes clear that their opponents don’t agree with the Democrat’s solutions, Democrats quickly move to declaring their opponents “unserious.” Finally, they pass legislation or, as more recently they can’t just ram legislation through because of split government, they take to lamenting the “unseriousness”, “selfishness”, or whatever other form of demagoguery they can muster. The notion that someone else could think something what’s “best for the country” and have it not be exactly what Democrats think doesn’t seem to occur to them.

With that, here we go:

  • Kevin Drum basically wants some kind of gun legislation and is apparently on board with passing it by any means necessary. His second statement starts “I’m all in favor of Congress taking some action to regulate guns, …” He states it so breezily that a reader might think that the gun market is completely unregulated, which is unequivocally false. For a small sampling, it is illegal to sell fully-automatic weapons to civilians.

    Further, and I hold Mr. Drum up as paragon of this particular rationale, there is no attempt to connect the regulation to the crime. “Newtown was so uniquely horrific that something has to happen” Mr. Drum states. Nothing like passing silly symbolic legislation that makes the lives of normal, law abiding citizens more difficult with the only rationale that “something had to be done.”

  • I’ve come to the conclusion that the only thing that might stop a future massacre in a school setting is allowing some kind of exemption for the “gun free zone.” Yes, this means I basically agree with Wayne Lapierre- at least let me justify it.

    1. Guns are here to stay for the foreseeable future. There are likely over 300 million in civilian possession. There no chance that changes. An outright ban that started now would be meaningless and a buyback program would do little to dent it. People want their guns in this country. Further, all evidence and common sense leads me to the conclusion that any ban at this point would only ensure criminals end up with guns. I read somewhere that the shooter at Newtown violated 40 something laws before he shot his first victim- think about that.

    2. There is no law that can be passed today that would have prevented the Newtown massacre. None. I understand this is frustrating, but that’s the reality we live in.

    3. The evidence we have about the personalities of mass shooters is they live in a fantasy world which is readily ruined. They are not, for instance, suicide bombers with a higher calling. Confronting them can quickly bring about an endgame that saves lives.

    4. This will piss people off, but I happen to believe it’s also a very unfortunate fact: the procedure that the teacher’s went through at Newtown lined up those children for slaughter. The teacher had no chance to stop the shooter once he arrived at the class room, locking the door was meaningless. The police arrived 20 minutes too late. The only reason the entire school wasn’t slaughtered was because the miserable piece of excrement shot himself.

    Given all of this, I think the only thing that has a chance of working is that a first responder already be on the premises. Yes, I also think there would be a preventative affect as well. What’s known about mass shooters points to the fact that they are drawn to helplessness- they typically choose targets where they know they won’t be confronted. The Aurora shooting this past Summer is an example- there were plenty of theatres in the immediate vicinity but he chose the one that had a gun ban.

    What form does this take? Well, I think some kind of general ability to wave the gun ban for qualified individuals is the way to go. Perhaps that means teachers and administrators can have concealed carry; or some kind of armed personnel like a security guard or police is on site. Notice I didn’t say “lift the gun bans”, I said “make qualified exceptions.”

  • I find the notion that the NRA or that gun owners in general are culpable for what happened odious. The NRA lobbies on the behalf of law abiding citizens and the vast majority of gun owners are law abiding citizens. Using this form of demagoguery is absurd. Personally, people pushing this argument should be slapped, hard.

    Don’t agree? Well, then how about we agree that all people who voted for President Obama are culpable in the murder of children by drone strikes. If the shoes fits, as they say.

    I’ll say it clearly because it can’t be said enough: the shooter at Newtown is the criminal and he deserves the disgust and anger of everyone. Law abiding citizens did not kill those teachers and children.

  • Smaller magazines or lower capacity clips will be meaningless. Criminals will make their own higher capacity clips, and those in circulation will remain.

  • Banning “assault weapons* is meaningless drivel. First, no one can even define what an “assault weapon” is. Second, criminals won’t care and will end up with them anyway.

  • Gun control advocates get sick and tired of hearing the same reasons and arguments, but that doesn’t make them any less potent. It means they haven’t come up with a proper counter idea, argument or rationale. They can’t wave those reasons and the rationale away by waving their hands and screaming “something has to be done.”

  • The statistics regarding the “successes” of gun control are highly debatable and abusable to the point, in my mind, that they are largely meaningless. Certain forms of gun violence go down, while others increase dramatically. I’ll agree that in an ideal world, guns don’t exist. Unfortunately, that’s not the world we live in and we can’t legislate our way into it.

Anyway, that’s it. If you’re a gun control advocate then I’m firmly in the “fanatic” zone at this point. That said, at least I have logic and reason on my side.

Categories
Politics

On Gun Control

This is probably the single best thing I’ve read about guns, gun control and useful policies going forward (via Instapundit). I’ll admit that my own conclusions went in this general direction including his opinion on concealed carry, so it could be a matter of confirmation bias on my part. Still, he takes on all forms of argument about gun control and throws in a number of surprises that I was unaware of in response to the usual arguments for gun control.

For instance, gun control proponents like to hold up Australia as a shining example of a success story. Why? Because in direct response to a mass shooting they banned guns and instituted a buy-back program. Since there have been no mass shootings. Sounds great, but, it turns out, the devil is in the details. Turns out there is little evidence that the new gun controls have had much effect on crime and violent crime in general.

There are other interesting tidbits throughout the article. Go give it a read.

Categories
Family Notweet

End of School

The world didn’t end today, but school for the current calendar year did. Go Mayans! I mean, seriously, what were the odds that they’d call a Friday in December for the day the world ended? They should get a little credit for that anyway.

Naturally, with 10 days off from school, the kids arrived home in their PJ’s and were bored 5 minutes later. As for the PJ’s, apparently, today is National Send Your Child to School in PJ’s day, or something to that effect. I hear it’s the latest thing in teaching technologies.

Categories
Family

A Close Call

I went out to the car this morning with the boy in toe. The lass was lagging behind a bit, as is her wont. I opted for the smaller car, which is my wont for the trek into school in the mornings with the kids. It’s patched up from the fender bender of a week ago, though it still bears the scratches from where I hit the guard rail.

I eased down into the seat because plopping won’t work for me. Really, the car is too small for me, but it gets good gas mileage so I make it work. Friends who have seen me drive it laugh because typically, I become invisible in the car. I have to tilt the seat back with the result that my head is obscured by the middle upright between the front and rear doors. Thus, it looks like the car is driving itself.

When I finished settling in, the boy was already in beside me and the lass was finally on her way. I stuck the key in the ignition and fired her up.

I always drive with the radio on. Lately, the kids have been disappointed that I don’t listen to Christmas music on the radio. The Wife has a Pandora station that she plays almost every day in the house, so I don’t exactly miss it for the 15 minutes I’m in the car in the mornings. Also, there’s a Boston radio station I enjoy listening to.

Usually.

This morning, the first thing that comes over the radio is one of the on-air personalities bleating out an excessively sarcastic “Wait a minute, you mean there really isn’t a Santa Claus?”

At which point I calmly, but quickly, punched the button to turn off the radio. The boy was futzing with his seat belt at that moment and the lass was just arriving at the car. Clearly, of the two, the boy was the one to be concerned with. Although, I was also concerned they might ask why I didn’t have the radio on since I always drive with the radio on.

If he did hear the line, the boy gave no indication whatsoever. Further, neither he nor his sister asked why I didn’t have the radio on. To avoid drawing their attention to it’s silence, I left it off for the entirety of the ride in, the whole 5 minutes worth. Plus, at that point, who knows what else they were going to blurt out.

All in all, my assumption is the boy didn’t hear the line. He’s not the sort who would have let that pass without asking a question like “Why did he say that?” or “What did he mean…?” I’m certain the lass didn’t hear anything, she wasn’t close enough at the time.

The Wife was rolling her eyes and shaking her head after I related the incident to her. She thinks that the boy is going to start figuring it out; he has at least 1 friend who already knows its a hoax, but I’m guessing his parents have explained that he’s not to say anything. I’m not so sure he’s ready to piece it together though. He wants to believe, and he isn’t asking any of the sorts of questions that indicate to me he’s thinking more critically about it.

Fortunately, this morning’s near miss hasn’t changed that.

Categories
Family

Our Mischievous Elf

Here’s our mischievous shelf elf:

Last week, he dipped into the Wife’s batch of chocolate chip cookies. He’s got a real sweet tooth this year. Much to the kid’s delight.