Broadsheet

Transition

2008-12-17T20:18:00.002-05:00

I started "Broadsheet" way back in January of '05 as a New Year's Resolution to take advantage of a relatively recent phenomenon at the time - a weblog. Granted, there were hundreds of thousands of blogs out there at the time, but "Blogger" and other user friendly apps like "Wordpress" ,"Live Journal", and "TypePad", suddenly made blogs accessible to anyone who had an opinion or something to say. Besides, I learned a lot of HTML progamming code in the process.

Today, there are billions of blogs, but the numbers are tapering out.

One of the biggest reasons, other than the obvious redundancy of all those voices in an echo chamber, is the parallel growth of social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, etc..

In 2003 -05, the blogosphere was growing exponentially and I have made some of the best friends of my life, and certainly my best friends in Baltimore - through this blog and the unbelievably strange intersection of cultures, lifestyles, age groups, and interests that have resulted. It has proven to be a true leveling field. People I would have NEVER met, let alone known I shared a common interest or passion with, I have met through Broadsheet.

And people around the WORLD. I've traveled to England and China and met people solely through this blog. I've been invited to their HOMES. Something I could never have anticipated. I've talked to people from almost every state and over 100 countries - it's been amazing.

BUT - I started this blog when I was bored with another job and could access Blogger from work, and since then, I now have a very demanding position with long hours that keeps me from posting as often as I like or am able. I also find, that what I may find interesting, is posted to dozens of other blog sites days before I ever get to it, and that I'm just posting personal updates, which are of utterly no interest to anyone beyond my family and friends, and I don't need the whole world to read the detritus of my day (like this post). There are also issues of anonymity regarding this blog related to my job which I don't want to compromise from a professional or personal basis.

I've recently found that Facebook and Flickr offer pretty much the same apps that this blog does, it allows me to provide links, pictures, notes and updates to my friends and family, without compromising my identity to people I don't know or taking up space in the blogosphere for people who have the time and energy to post thoughtful critiques and essays. I simply don't anymore.

I won't take Broadsheet down, I still get hits on arcane posts from around the world that are fun, but after the January 1 - I won 't be posting much anymore (not that I have recently).

For the couple of dozen or so regular Broadsheet readers left - give Facebook a try.

Full Moon!

2008-12-12T12:21:00.000-05:00

If the moon looks closer tonight than usual - it is. Tonight's full moon puts the moon at its closest point to earth in more than 15 years - about 19,000 miles closer than usual.

It will look enormous on the horizon, but the trick may be seeing it all tonight. It's supposed to be cloudy and cold here on the East Coast. Moonrise is scheduled for 4:35 PM this evening.

You say Potato, I say Potahto

2008-12-08T20:24:00.002-05:00

AFP Photo

Khalil Semhat with his 24.9 pound potato, 50 miles south of Beirut Lebanon.

And who knew 2008 was the UN Year of the Potato? Wonder what 2009's vegetable will be? Brussel Sprouts?

Whistle-Blowers in Chinese City Sent to Mental Hospital

2008-12-08T20:15:00.002-05:00

Classic Chinese government maneuver - from the 1960's....

If you don't agree with the policies of the all knowing, benevolent father land, then you MUST be crazy. Off to an institution to be starved, isolated and broken in a work camp until you think straight. Nice.

In an investigative report published Monday by a state-owned newspaper, public security officials in the city of Xintai in Shandong Province have been institutionalizing residents who persist in their personal campaigns to expose corruption or the unfair seizure of their property. Some people said they were committed for up to two years, and several of those interviewed said they were forcibly medicated.

At least this news is getting some play in an otherwise tightly controlled state media. Maybe in the age of the internet and instant communication, public outcry can make a difference.

My Favorite Comfort Food

2008-12-01T21:22:00.003-05:00

My favorite food blog, 101 Cookbooks, posted her recipe for her favorite comfort food - a mushroom and rice casserole. It looks amazing, and I intend to try it.

My personal favorite comfort food is a similar dish, and I made it last night. Wild Mushroom Risotto. It's incredibly easy, and nearly impossible to screw up. It's filling, flavorful and delicious, and you can almost always make it with items on hand.

There is no one way to make this, but in general, it goes something like this:

Wild Mushroom Risotto

1 large Spanish or Vidalia Onion - chopped
2 cloves of garlic - minced
2 TB Butter and 1 TB olive oil
8 oz of portobello, cremini, or plain old button mushrooms - sliced.
2 oz of other wild mushrooms: chanterelle, porcini, morel, etc... if you're lucky enough to get them fresh - good for you. Otherwise, take 1 oz. of the dried version and hydrate them in a cup of boiling water for 20 minutes.
1/2 cup of dry sherry - or white wine, but the sherry adds a sweetness and nuttiness, that is intoxicating.
1 cup of Arborio rice
4 cups mushroom broth, or mushroom soaking liquid (chicken stock is fine too)
2 teaspoons fresh thyme
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
truffle oil (optional)

Chop the onion and garlic finely, and saute them in the butter and olive oil for at least 3 minutes.
Add the fresh and reconstituted (drained) mushrooms - saute until the liquid is evaporated and the mushrooms are browned.
Add thyme.
Add the rice and saute - stirring constantly to coat the rice with oil for at least 2 minutes.
Add the dry sherry and stir until it is absorbed.
Add the mushroom soaking liquid (drained through cheesecloth for grit) and stir till absorbed.
Add the remaining liquid in 1 cup intervals and stir until creamy.
Add Parmesan cheese until creamy.
Season to taste.

If you want to get really decadent, you can add some Gorgonzola or creme freche to the final serving. If you're serving it with lamb, I recommend the creme freche. With beef - Gorgonzola.

I could have this every day and be happy. Some people love chicken noodle soup or mac and cheese - I love this.

Note - this takes a good 20-25 minutes of total cooking time, and you MUST stir the rice! It knocks the starch casing off the rice kernel and makes the dish creamy. Try this. You'll never eat mac and cheese again, and always have the stuff on hand to make a quick version of this.

Variations include: using red onion instead of white if you don't have sherry, adding a splash of balsamic vinegar, using tarragon instead of thyme, adding sweet Italian sausage, red peppers, and peas for a complete meal....you decide.

New Toy

2008-11-26T16:56:00.003-05:00

My friend Gerry just sent me a link to Media Hopper.

You can watch live Television broadcasts from any channel in any country around the world....24 hours a day.

Wanna see that BBC show before it hits the US - just check the listings and tune in.

Good lord, what a time suck this will be....

Florio

2008-11-22T14:19:00.002-05:00

On our first night in San Francisco, it was a classic November evening with driving rains. Flights were delayed and by the time we got to our friend's condo in Pacific Heights - it was 11:00 our time and we were starving and exhausted. Because of the weather, we just ventured two blocks down the street to Florio, an absolute gem of a bistro. It reminded me a little of 'b' here in Bolton Hill, in that, on a Saturday night in that weather, it was packed with people from the neighborhood. This isn't a destination restaurant, simply a wonderful, local bistro serving marvelous food.

Despite the fact that our friend was chummy with the owner and waitstaff - so was everyone else, and without a reservation at prime time, we happily sat at the bar to have dinner. My friends both had one of Florio's signature dishes - a hanger steak with fries, and I tried their special - a braised shoulder of pork with leeks and carrots in farro - it was out of this world. I took some notes on the dish, and assuming I can find farro (an Italian grain, like small barley) at Whole Foods, I'm going to try and make it tomorrow. Either that, or I'll have to write in to Bon Appetit and ask them to get the recipe for me. It was the perfect comfort food on a cold, rainy night when you just want to relax with friends over a good glass of wine...

Fainting Spell

2008-11-21T18:06:00.000-05:00

Mukasey was giving a spirited defense of the Bush administration's legal policies when his speech began to slur and he lost track of his thoughts about 30 minutes into his talk. Seconds later, he became rigid and then began to slump.

If I was asked to give a spirited defense of the Bush Administration's Legal Policies, I would have gone rigid and fainted too, but probably not before I threw up.

What Recession?

2008-11-18T21:50:00.002-05:00

I know, I know - I've been busy and haven't blogged vacation yet. The thought of writing up all the "French Laundry" details is intimidating me, and I haven't had the time.

But this NYT article floors me: Mercedes Plans West Side Showroom

Mercedes, the German carmaker and a unit of Daimler A.G., said on Monday that it would spend $220 million to build a new flagship sales and service center under a luxury apartment complex planned on the West Side of Manhattan.

So while US carmakers are pleading their case to Congress for a $25 billion bailout (which, BTW is on TOP of another $25 billion they got last year to incentivize them to create cars that reduce reliance on gas that people would actually BUY), their competitors are trotting out more fancy showrooms and hoping things turn around by 2011.

WTF GM?? Building gas guzzling SUVs for the last decade when everyone knew this was coming.

I know we had to bail out Wall Street. I know we have to give homeowners a break on their mortgages to avoid foreclosure, and I know we have to bail out the US automotive industry for the good of the country whether I like it or not - and I don't. Not one little bit. But damn it - when this is over, I want a break on MY taxes, an economic stimulus check (that I never got), and some kind of recognition or profit from the fact that I pay my bills on time, have no credit card debt, and didn't buy a house I couldn't afford in the first place.

Write it in the book of love....

2008-11-12T00:50:00.002-05:00

I am not gay, I am not married, I have never been married and at this time in my life, I do not intend to get married. But I wish that for others. I wish it for everyone who wants it.

If you are against gay marriage? Fine - don't have one. I didn't. I won't. I could care less. But I do care about people being happy and people having the same rights as others. Especially when it does no harm to anyone else.

I woke up last Wednesday morning in a country that had elected its first African American President. Something many people thought might never happen. I am full of hope for this country for the first time since I have been eligible to vote.

And yet I also woke up to that reality in California, one of the most progressive states in the country, which, due to a vote carried largely by African American and Latino voters - the very constituents who elected that black President for the first time in American History - Gays and Lesbians cannot legally marry.

That made me immeasurably sad. Keith Olberman said it best...

The Perfect Day

2008-11-11T22:10:00.002-05:00

If someone ever asks me to describe the perfect day, I would have to say that last Tuesday came pretty damn close. At least as close as a day back in February that I went snorkeling off the coast of Aruba with my friends followed by a wonderful sunset dinner at a great restaurant.

Fast forward to November: Same friends, only this time we are in Napa Valley on a gorgeous, crisp, clear, fall day, when the sunshine is intense and yet the light is soft. We spent the day visiting beautiful vineyards, tasting extraordinary wines in some incredibly lush locations. Along the way, we stopped at Dean and Deluca's in Napa for provisions of gourmet cheeses, charcuterie, fresh vegetables, pate, crackers, and other tapas nibbles, and we also stopped at Domaine Carneros for sparking wines.

We headed back to the resort at 4:00 PM and went straight to the spa (which is every bit as luxe as the website describes) for our "Friends Forever" service, a total chick indulgence, which included a massage, body scrub and facial for all of us, followed by a private wine and cheese service in the Wine Cave next to the spa.

And as if that day weren't perfect enough, we returned to the gourmet kitchen in our condo, lit a fire in the fireplace, set out the spread of wine and food we had purchased, and settled in to watch the election returns on the flat screen plasma TV and celebrated the fact that there is now a President elect who is eloquent and can speak in complete sentences without embarrassing himself or our country.

Napa, friends, wine, spa, food and celebration.

Yep - that goes down in my book as one of the most perfect days EVER.

Holding Out

2008-11-11T22:05:00.003-05:00

With relatively new, very expensive, energy efficient windows and a brand new roof, I have been reluctant to turn the furnace on until after Thanksgiving.

So far, it's been a balmy 65-70 degrees in the house, but with the cold weather last night and tonight, it's beginning to slip a bit. The house is quite comfortable with a sweater in the house and a down comforter on the bed as low as 60 degrees. Below that and I may have to give in.

I also have a fireplace that can add anywhere from 3 - 10 degrees to the living room depending on the ambient temperature.

It's 64 degrees currently - so far, so good, and Thanksgiving is only 2 weeks away....

Oh - and stupid stuff

2008-11-10T22:44:00.002-05:00

I got home from CA around midnight last night and ditched my bags in the front hallway.

Then I went straight to bed.

The alarm went off at 6:00 AM as usual, and I reluctantly got up and got ready for work. It seemed strange that there was very little traffic on the way to work, and even more strange that there were no cars in the parking lot when I got there.

Not suprisingly, no one was in the office at that hour since it was only 6:30 AM.

My alarm clock and the clock in the car were wrong, and with the time change happening more than a week ago - I totally forgot.

I'm remembering it now - ouch.

Swirl, swirl, smell. sip. and spit

2008-11-10T22:20:00.002-05:00

I'm back.

Couple of days in San Francisco, three more in Napa /Sonoma, and then two days in Sacramento for the American Wine Society Conference.

WOW - I ate some exquisite food and drank/ bought some even more amazing wines.

Highlights:

1. "Friends Forever" spa treatment in a wine cave (yes - wine cave - carved in to the hillside) at our resort: Massage, body scrub, and cheese and fruit tray with wine for four friends, followed by a soak in the hot spring and sparkling wine.

2. Dinner at The French Laundry - more to follow

3. Lunch at "Julia's Kitchen" and touring Copia

4. Winning a silent auction flight of reserve Old Vine Zinfadels from St. Francis: 1998-2003

5. Meeting Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver - seriously.

More to follow....

"Sideways" meets "Thelma and Louise"

2008-10-31T23:10:00.002-04:00

The last load of laundry is in the dryer, dry cleaning picked up, most of the clothes have been assembled, pet sitters are all lined up, dishes are done, plants are watered, litter boxes cleaned, trash taken out, bills paid....

All I have to do is pack the suitcase and get on a plane.

Ahead is a week in San Francisco, Napa Valley, and Sacramento (for the American Wine Society Annual Conference). Napa is a pre-game for the conference. It'll be interesting to see how many wine professionals attend this year since the conference is in the heart of Northern CA wine country. Displays and vendors should be better than when the conference was held in Baltimore two years ago, although I was very impressed with the number of quality winemakers from Spain, Portugal and South America represented. This year's location may prove to be pretty well represented. We're taking over the Hyatt Regency in Sacramento.

The absolute highlight of the trip? We scored reservations to one of the best restaurants in America, if not the world. Thomas Keller's The French Laundry. For a foodie like me - this is a bucket list / Nirvana event. The French Laundry has won just about every award there is, including THREE Michelin stars. I've never eaten at anything more than a one star, and maybe only one restaurant at that. The French Laundry inspired a gorgeous coffee table book of recipes so intimidating, that only this woman was crazy enough to take it on.

At $240 a person for dinner, (it's a pix frixe tasting menu) it is a major splurge, but you only live once. Besides, I'm doing this trip on free miles, staying at a resort with friends that have free nights, etc.

They post a different tasting menu every day on the website. Tune in Wednesday and see what we're having for dinner.

Simple Things You Can Do in the Next 6 Days

2008-10-29T20:22:00.002-04:00

Vote November 4
Election Day is just six days away. Here are four easy things you can do to make sure everyone is ready to vote:

Find Your Polling Place Location

At VOTE411.org, find out where to go to vote, learn about polling place hours and identification requirements, and verify your registration.

Read Tips about Election Day in Your State

Search our system to find out comprehensive information about candidates and the electoral process in your state.

Tell All Your Friends and Family

Make sure your friends and family ready, too! Pass this post along to make sure they are well-informed and ready for Election Day.

VOTE

No matter the outcome, this election will determine the future of our country and impact the lives of every single one of us. That is why it is so important for all of us to cast a vote.

Join Us in Making Democracy Work at www.lwv.org
League of Women Voters
1730 M Street, NW, Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20036

The Downsizing Project

2008-10-27T22:47:00.005-04:00

Every weekend from now until the New Year, I will be spending the significant portion of one day a week sorting the contents of one or more rooms in my house into three bins: Trash, Charity, and Treasure. Every drawer, every shelf, every closet, every cabinet and cupboard.

At the ripe old age of 40 something, I find horrific clutter in my life. Not emotional clutter, but clutter in the fact that I have an untold number of plastic beer cups (from concert events, Mardi Gras, and sporting events), really fugly old ceramic coffee mugs from my first boss's Xmas gift, an Espresso machine I've used maybe twice a year - even less now that there is a Starbuck's on every corner. And let's not even talk about old sheets, towels, pillow cases, shower curtains, etc...

Oh, and the PAPER...so much paper. Letters, magazines, old bills, brochures, long expired coupons, you name it. I could fill a shredder truck.

I'm very good about recycling. Heck, I even dragged back all the recycling from our family weekend trip to Deep Creek, and dragged home all the beer and soda cans from our company picnic last weekend just to make sure they are recycled.

I'm also pretty good with clothes and shoes - making at least an annual cleansing of my closets.

Still - there seems to be so much STUFF. Old Rugs. Crockery. Flower vases. Pots and pans.... I'm afraid to look under the sink in the bathrooms and kitchen.

It has to go. All of it. I am on a mission. Some of it might be worth something. If I think it is - I'll let you know and perhaps you can make me an offer.

For instance - I have at least two perfectly good TVs that you can have. Come February, they'll be useless unless you connect them to cable, but I'll leave that up to you. One is a large, 20" Toshiba, the other is a small, 13" RCA model. Both are cable ready. Make an offer.

Progess

2008-10-26T16:56:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was dark, grey, wet, and miserable. The perfect day to roast a whole chicken for the week ahead.

Today is a glorious fall day and I've been extremely productive:

1. Trip to the Goodwill drop off dumpster with FOUR bags of old clothes and shoes.
2. Trip to the hazardous waste recycling center with old paint cans, thermostats, etc..
3. Washed the comforter cover, hallway and bathroom rugs, not to mention 6 loads of other laundry.
4. Cleaned the fireplace out so I can fill it up again with fall ashes.
5. Grocery shopping
6. Bill paying and desk organizing.

And for lunch? If there is a better lunch than a piece of skin on cold roasted chicken with an ice cold glass of milk, I don't know about it. I really wanted a chocolate chip cookie for dessert...

Feel Good Investing in Uncertain Times

2008-10-26T09:53:00.002-04:00

Tired of watching your 401(k) wither on the vine? Sick of the Wall Street roller coaster? Looking for an opportunity that helps others?

A lot of people are reducing their charitable giving in light of the current economic crisis, and this just makes the global poverty crisis worse.

What if you could donate to charity and get that donation back so you can give it over and over again to someone else?

Consider investing your loose change in Kiva.org. Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world. It also provides a level of transparency and fiduciary oversight I have not seen in many other charitable organizations.

Less than 1.3% of the nearly $16.5 million dollars in loans in Kiva have defaulted, and if they do, you are out $100 or less since most of the loans are very small. The reasons for default can often be contributed to on the ground issues such as drought, war, HIV/AIDS, or other uncontrollable circumstances. Issues that farmers have faced around the world since time began and since they started bartering or borrowing to get their their crops started every year with a promise to pay their benefactor back with the proceeds from the crop, or the crop itself.

The beauty of Kiva is that they screen the entrepreneurs and rate all the risk. You can also partner with teams giving on behalf of a certain cause. I like it because I can research my own investment opportunities and pick projects that mean something.

And yes, as you might expect, the major beneficiary of global micro financing is women.

This is by no means a new concept. Muhammad Yunus founded the Grameen Bank and took home the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.

Low risk, feel good charity. Try it - you'll feel part of something instead of being an anonymous shareholder of an increasingly worthless piece of stock paper.

There goes the Southern Vote

2008-10-25T15:08:00.001-04:00

In case you're the last person on the planet who hasn't seen this yet - enjoy!

If Andy Griffith votes Democratic, I think it's safe to say the South is lost...

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

Farmer in Chief

2008-10-25T09:34:00.002-04:00

Thanks to my laptop issues, this post is a little dated because the article ran two weekends ago, but it is so important, I want to post it now.

Revered food writer, Michael Pollen, wrote an article in the Sunday NYT Magazine's Food Issue two weekends ago, aimed at the next President, and what their food and farming policies should look like.

In short, if you think food policy is not important in this year's election, then you might as well give up on energy independence, climate changes, and healthcare, because it all starts with the food we grow and eat. Here's just some of what he says:

1. Climate Change: After cars, the food system uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy — 19 percent...the 20th-century industrialization of agriculture has increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the food system by an order of magnitude; chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food.Expect to hear the phrases “food sovereignty” and “food security” on the lips of every foreign leader you meet. Not only the Doha round, but the whole cause of free trade in agriculture is probably dead, the casualty of a cheap food policy that a scant two years ago seemed like a boon for everyone. It is one of the larger paradoxes of our time that the very same food policies that have contributed to overnutrition in the first world are now contributing to undernutrition in the third.

2. Healthcare: Four of the top 10 killers in America today are chronic diseases linked to diet: heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes and cancer. It is no coincidence that in the years national spending on health care went from 5 percent to 16 percent of national income, spending on food has fallen by a comparable amount — from 18 percent of household income to less than 10 percent. While the surfeit of cheap calories that the U.S. food system has produced since the late 1970s may have taken food prices off the political agenda, this has come at a steep cost to public health. You cannot expect to reform the health care system, much less expand coverage, without confronting the public-health catastrophe that is the modern American diet.

3. Foreign Policy: Expect to hear the phrases “food sovereignty” and “food security” on the lips of every foreign leader you meet. Not only the Doha round, but the whole cause of free trade in agriculture is probably dead, the casualty of a cheap food policy that a scant two years ago seemed like a boon for everyone. It is one of the larger paradoxes of our time that the very same food policies that have contributed to overnutrition in the first world are now contributing to undernutrition in the third.

4. National Security One word - China?? Seriously, our nation's food system is perhaps the most vulnerable to potential acts of terrorism of anything we have.

His overall message:

we need to wean the American food system off its heavy 20th-century diet of fossil fuel and put it back on a diet of contemporary sunshine.

I urge you to read the entire article. Everyone needs to know this.

I'm Baaack!

2008-10-23T17:56:00.002-04:00

Three weeks and a lot of drama, and the only thing wrong with my laptop ended up being a $25 replacement AC adapter and power cord.... oh, and the $60 I had to spend on a computer geek to tell me that.

Only now I have to push the lust for the new Macbook they released last week out of my mind for the time being. Not that I had any business spending two grand on a computer the week before I head out to CA for a wine and spa extravaganza in Napa Valley for a week.

So - where were we?

Updates

2008-10-11T09:54:00.002-04:00

It's been a wild week. So here's where we are:

1. My computer guy thinks my laptop might need a new power board. That would be good news. A $150 fix and I'm back in business. Otherwise, I may be using a weekend loaner from our IT group for a while, and will be limited to weekend blogging. Advice regarding new laptops is welcome, but I think I'm going to wait for the new MacBook release on 10/14 and take advantage of some expected price drops if I have to replace the old HP.

2. Someone hacked my PayPal account and managed to get away with nearly $1,000. PayPal assures me that they are working on it, and so far they have retrieved $200 and stopped another $850 from being taken, but my checking account is lighter by $900 and that hurts. It also means I won't be buying a new computer anytime soon.

3. Coming home from a neighborhood meeting on Tuesday night, I saw a large shadow on my garden wall which I assumed was the neighbor's cat. Until I saw the long, hairless, tail.... It was an opossum. In Bolton Hill. On my garden wall. I had heard other neighbors tell of seeing it, but the sucker is BIG. What's next - a black bear in the city?

4. I had the unexpected pleasure of meeting Tom Fenton the other night at an intimate gathering in the neighborhood. As you might recall, Tom was the CBS News Bureau Chief in London for many years, and still lives there. What you may not know, is that he is a Baltimore native who attended Gillman and worked for the Baltimore Sun before his career with CBS. Terrific discussion about his travels and his views on the media, the election, and the Middle East.

5. Today is our very own Festival on the Hill. It's a beautiful fall day. Come out and meet your neighbors, have some great food, enjoy some great music, and have a generally great time. I know I will.

Take Me Home Country Roads

2008-10-11T09:42:00.002-04:00

So....last weekend we had our annual family palooza out in Deep Creek, MD for the tenth year in a row. Gorgeous weather, kayaking, great food, and a chance to see the American Open Whitewater Kayak races at the newly opened man made course at Wisp Resorts.

On the way home from the weekend on Monday, I decided to drive up through the Savage River gorge area forming the boundary between Maryland and West Virginia. My first clue that something was wrong, was seeing a lot of McCain/Palin posters in the yards of farms and trailers (OK, maybe I wasn't surprised by the trailer signs), but when I stopped to get gas in an out of the way hamlet, and encountered a biker with "White Power" tatooed across the back of both arms, I wondered if I was even in the US anymore.

Thankfully, it may be an anomaly. American Research Group is giving Obama an eight point lead in WV for the same time period I drove through the far western end of it.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke)

2008-10-10T18:44:00.003-04:00

I'm back for the weekend on a borrowed laptop from work. Lots of stuff to update, including a dinner with the CBS London News Bureau Chief, but in the meantime, this PSA cannot be copied or borrowed or distributed enough. I know there are more than five of you out there reading this - so get busy!!!

I'll be at the Bolton Hill Festival registering voters tomorrow. If you live in Maryland - TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14 is the LAST DAY TO REGISTER. If you don't - and don't vote, I don't want to hear any complaints if it doesn't go your way.

HT: Jwer, Zenchick and at least four others.

Broadhseet off line for now

2008-10-06T12:31:00.002-04:00

Hey folks -

Due to unforseen techinical diffulties, Broadsheet is taking a brief hiatus.

My home desktop died a few months ago after 6 years - it was time.

Today, my trusty HP Notebook died unexpectedly after only three years and it was not time....

I can't access the blog at work (appropriately so), so until I get my home computing situation straightened out, I'm off line for the time being.

To be honest, I can use the break, but with the economy tanking and only 30 days to the election, it's also a bit stifling.

I'll be back....

Ditto the post below

2008-10-02T21:03:00.000-04:00

OMG. She just asked if it was OK if she called him "Joe" instead of Senator Biden.

Must watch TV.

I should be cleaning, doing laundry and packing for a weekend getaway to Deep Creek.

Later. I'll deal with it when I get there.

I don't know how people live blog these things. I could never keep up and concentrate on their answers.

ooooo - she's going for the soccer mom angle! gotta go....

What are you watching right now?

2008-09-26T21:07:00.001-04:00

The Debate.

Getup, go to work, come home, grab some sleep, repeat...

2008-09-25T22:15:00.000-04:00

Treadmill week:

Monday - took an online class from 7 pm-11 pm to maintain my professional certification (I have four more units to complete in the next four weeks).

Tuesday: Community board meeting from 7:30 - 10:00 PM

Wednesday: League of Women Voters Board meeting 5:30-7:30 PM (plus a special luncheon at the Hopkins Faculty Club from 12-2 PM where I delivered an award to someone)

Thursday: Employee Recognition Dinner 5:30 - 9:30 PM - more awards

Friday: Volunteer at Book Festival 7:00 - 9:00 pm (I'm gonna get soaked in the Nor'easter we're having. It's howling outside tonight).

Luckily, the cleaning lady was here on Tuesday, and I have clean sheets and a clean bathroom. Unfortunately, there is a pile of shoes immediately inside the door as I kick them off when I enter the house, and the sink is full of coffee cups, wine glasses and breakfast dishes from the last couple of days.

I can never catch up...

PSA - Baltimore Book Festival

2008-09-22T22:53:00.002-04:00

Hey!

Broadsheet is trying to get the word out about the 13^th Annual Baltimore Book Festival, which is the mid-Atlantic’s premier celebration of the literary arts and will be held Sept 26^th-Sept 28^th at the Historic Mount Vernon Place centered on the 600 block of North Charles Street, 21201. Baltimore, MD. We are working with the Book Festival organizers hoping to create a buzz about the event through the internet.

I will be representing the League of Women Voters at the festival all weekend registering voters, handing out absentee ballots, and giving everyone a chance to change your address without standing in line for 5 hours at the MVA. This is a NATIONAL election year, and the deadline for voter registration in Baltimore is October 14, 2008.

I represent the League of Women Voters, and our primary goal is to get as many people as possible to exercise their constitutional right - VOTE!

This is an historic election. Your vote is your voice. Please speak up. We'll have lots of voter education materials - please stop by.

The Baltimore Book Festival is free to the public and is featuring both nationally known and local authors including: Dr. Cornel West, Naomi Wolf, Walter Moseley, Congresswomen Linda and Loretta Sanchez, Iyanla Vanzant, Daniel Mark Epstein and Omar Tyree. It will also have poetry readings, children’s activities, cookbook demonstrations by chefs such as Martin Yan, George Duran and The Hearty Boys, live music and more than 100 exhibitors and book sellers.

As with any Baltimore festivals, there will be plenty of great food, great music, and terrific people.

Love, Broadsheet

Money Laundering

2008-09-21T11:15:00.003-04:00

I'm sitting here with my Sunday morning coffee checking the news on line and watching the talking heads and wonks in DC debate the current financial crisis.

I'm listening as Hank Paulson makes the rounds on all three networks this morning describing the need for stabilizing the market, and that the Government had no choice but to step in. Many people are screaming that this smacks of socialism.

I know all this, but really, I mean instead of socialism, aren't we just enabling money laundering on a scale that's almost incomprehensible? And no one but the taxpayers pay the consequences of that?

Wikipedia defines money laundering in part as..."any financial transaction which generates an asset or a value as the result of an illegal act, which may involve actions such as tax evasion or false accounting."

Well, the US Government is about to provide a massive financial transaction which is certain to generate an asset and a value to the banks and insurance companies as the result of what could certainly be construed as false accounting by many of these banks.

I was listening to NPR the other day, and the commentator was saying that these sub prime mortgages had been "bundled" into products in such a way that no one really knew what they were buying because the complexity of the "bundles" prevent almost anyone from truly understanding what's in them. They're like onions of bad deals, with layer upon layer of overvalued asset hiding in every ring.

That's a pretty poor excuse for fiduciary mismanagement bordering on the criminal - don't you think?

Zucchini, Lemon and Ricotta Galettes

2008-09-21T10:52:00.003-04:00

Mmmmm - I used the zucchini I bought at the Famer's Market to create this dish, the recipe for which is in this month's Bon Appetite Magazine.

The only difference I made in the recipe was to make a whole grain crust, and I must say, the crust is really spectacular. This recipe makes enough dough and filling for six generous galettes.

This recipe is under copywrite, instead of my own experimenting, so I can't print it it here, but I can provide the link to it...

Individual Zucchini, Lemon and Ricotta Galettes

If you follow the link, you'll immediately realize that my pastry work leaves a lot to be desired compared to their perfectly styled and lit magazine photos. I am not a pastry maven. I think it's a lot of work, and hard to manage. This wasn't that bad, even if my galettes are a little more "free form" than the ones in the magazine.

Anyway, here's the "before" photo - ready to go in the oven. The orange flecks are Hawaiian sea salt I use as a finishing salt.

These are like mini quiches, and just burst with lemony, creamy, zucchini flavor. They are fine on their own, or paired with a lovely piece of perfectly grilled and seasoned leg of lamb.

These freeze really well, so I look forward to enjoying the remainder at a later date.

Vote Palin For President!!

2008-09-20T22:26:00.000-04:00

The Last Supper

2008-09-20T12:23:00.003-04:00

If anyone ever asks me what I would want as my last meal, it would include what I made for dinner Tuesday night.

On my first trip to Europe, I was with my parents in a little village on the edge of the Black Forest in Germany and we were in a very simple tavern with a roaring fire and lots of Hansel and Gretel charm. The menu had a lot of fresh game, trout and pheasant dishes from the local forest, and everything came "mit pfifferling". A quick glance in my handy German dictionary, and "pfifferling" are chanterelle mushrooms, also a local forest delicacy. Chanterelles are bright orange, with white meat, and have a very delicate, almost nutty or apricot flavor to them. I fell in love with them on the spot and have had a craving for them ever since.

So imagine my delight when they were selling them at the Farmer's Market last Sunday. Granted, they were still $10 a box, but they were beautiful. I also picked up a small tub of black truffle butter.

I decided to use them in one of my favorite comfort food dishes - risotto.

A classic risotto is actually very easy to make:

Chop a large sweet onion and saute it in 1 TBL of good olive oil and 1 TBL of butter - only here I used the black truffle butter.

Once the onions have sweated for about 5 minutes, add a cup of good arborio rice and stir for about 2 minutes until every grain has been coated with the oil and butter.

Deglaze the pan with a glass of white wine and let the rice absorb it.

Start adding a cup of good chicken stock 1/4 cup at a time as the rice absorbs it, and keep stirring. Stirring is important in good risotto, it kocks the starch off the grain and give the risotto its famous creamy consistency. You'll need about 2 cups of stock for a cup of rice.

When you add the last 1/4 cup of stock, toss in the mushrooms and add a sprinkle of saffron. About a dozen or so threads crushed with your fingers. I happened to have some REALLY high quality Khyrgyz saffron I bought in the markets in Kashgar, China, and this seemed as good a time as any to use it.

As the risotto reaches its creamy stage, toss in 1/2 cup of high quality, grated Parmegano Reggiano cheese and stir till the cheese is melted and the risotto is thick and creamy. Season with salt and fresh ground pepper.

Pour this into a bowl and shave some more cheese over the top.

Then to add some BAM - drizzle a few drops of white truffle oil over the top. And yes, it's over the top.

It was just awesome.

China Arrests 12 More in Milk Contamination Crisis

2008-09-20T10:35:00.003-04:00

Last year, when Chinese pet food tainted with melanine was killing pets here in the US, and there were questions about the safety of Chinese pharmaceuticals and toothpaste, the leader of China's FDA was arrested and later executed for taking bribes and allowing it to happen.

Now, with China's own children on the line, in a country with a one child policy where children are the centerpiece of Chinese Society, the government is again cracking down, this time on milk suppliers in provinces across China.

Rumors are also flying that this crisis has been going on knowingly for at least three months, but that the Chinese were reluctant to interrupt their spot in the global sunshine during the Olympics in August.

Now I know China is a totalitarian regime, and we would never do something like this in the US, but don't you wish for one minute that instead of the government being forced to bail out our entire financial system on the backs of the taxpayers, that maybe they should have cracked down Chinese style on unscrupulous lenders and companies when this was all happening in the first place? I'm just sayin. It's not as if these idiotic high risk lending practices were some sort of secret or anything.

A cloud in an otherwise beautiful day.

2008-09-14T12:30:00.001-04:00

I got up at the crack of dawn this morning and headed to the Farmer's Market with some friends where I scored beautiful zuchini and the most perfect pint of raspberries ever grown. I also treated myself to a bag of fresh chanterelle mushrooms and a fresh rabbit, along with some of that incredible smoked salmon pate' and freshly made mozarella from the Belvedere Market. I grabbed some fresh flowers and some good breakfast sausage from the Pig Boys and headed home to make brunch for the neighbors.

So....at 10:00, the neighbors all came over for brunch in the garden. I had thrown together a crab, cheese, and red pepper strata last night which I simply had to toss in the oven to get puffy and golden, along with the fresh sausage and some tomatoes from my garden that I simply broiled with some basil butter and parmesan cheese. Wash everything down with a spicy Bloody Mary and lots of coffee, and so far Sunday morning is about as perfect as they come.

I figure I'll do some laundry, take a nap, and then at 5:00, our neighborhood is hosting its annual end of summer picnic in the commons across the way. That would make it a perfect Sunday all the way around in my book.

That was, until I sat down to check email and read the NYT after I cleaned up the brunch dishes and discovered that not only had one of my favorite authors died, but that he hanged himself at the age of 46. David Foster Wallace.

As I'm sitting here, on a beautiful Indian summer day having enjoyed some good food with good friends, it seems so hard to believe that such a brilliant and gifted person could have been suffering so much that they lost the will to live.

RIP David Wallace.

Keeping up with the Joneses

2008-09-13T15:27:00.002-04:00

Speaking of chimneys....

I was stopped at the stoplight at the intersection of Greenspring and Old Court Roads the other day and glanced over to see a stately brick estate with wonderful landscaping, tennis courts and all the trappings of wealth in that part of town. The driveway was flanked by two large, brick columns with ornate lamps on them. On the front of one of the columns was a brass plaque that said "Six Chimneys" - the name of the estate.

I glanced to my right, and directly across the street was a rather down in the mouth rancher that had seen better days with a pickup truck parked in the driveway. A smaller, less ornate plaque on the mailbox proudly proclaimed "One Chimney and a Vent".

I was laughing so hard, I nearly missed the light turning green.

Caturday

2008-09-13T15:18:00.002-04:00

A lone bumblebee somehow found its way down my chimney flu and got covered in soot and ash. He's was making quite a buzzing racket and immediately attracted the attention of the stealthy hunters living in the house...

Hours of enjoyment ensued as the cats tried to make sense of the angry buzzing lump of soot alternately crawling and flying around inside the fireplace.

Does anyone have any tips on getting an angry bumblebee out of a fireplace? If it gets out, it'll leave ash marks everywhere, not to mention the trail of destruction along its flight path caused by two huge cats chasing it and knocking things over to get at it.

Capturing Summer's Bounty

2008-09-07T22:21:00.002-04:00

My tomato plants have exploded in the past two weeks. I've already made a big batch of fresh gazpacho, and a wonderful panzanella salad with crumbled ricotta salata, but this is what I collected just this week since I've been back from New England:

I planted a Roma tomato plant and a Yellow Beefsteak plant. Yep, all this and much, much more from two plants I got for $.50 apiece in May.

In search of the perfect tomato sauce recipe to capture the essence of summer, I looked at a variety of recipes for tomato sauce. I wanted something both basic and straightforward that I could add to later, but also something that would be fresh tasting and perfect on its own. I liked the idea of roasting the tomatoes instead of stewing them in a pot, and adding the flavor of roasted garlic as well. So here goes:

Broadsheet's Roasted Garlic and Tomato Sauce

Heat the oven to 450 degrees.
Take an entire head of garlic and take off as much of the paper from the bulb without separating the cloves.
Take the top 1/4 inch of the bulb leaving the cloves intact.
Wrap the bulb in a piece of aluminum foil after drizzling a tablespoon of good olive oil into the foil package. Put this package in the oven when you roast the tomatoes.

Take 5-6 pounds of tomatoes, quarter them, and toss them in a large roasting pan.
Toss in a large, chopped yellow onion
Toss everything well in about 1/4 - 1/3 cup good olive oil.
Drizzle with balsamic vinegar (~ 2 TBL)
Add 1 TBL of sugar
Sprinkle with sea salt and lots of ground pepper.
Toss well.

This is what you have going into the oven:

Whack this in the oven for an hour - stirring every 20 minutes or so. This is what you get:

The tomatoes are completely cooked down and have a bit of a char on them. Don't worry about skins and seeds - this is all gonna get pulverized in a minute.

Let this cool a bit, and then squeeze in all the lovely roasted garlic cloves.
To this, add:
1 cup of chopped fresh basil
1/2 cup of chopped fresh oregano
1/2 bunch of flat leaf parsely - chopped
1 tsp cayenne pepper to taste

Take an immersion blender to the whole thing. You can make this silky smooth, or just get the garlic and herbs incorporated well, and leave it a tad chunky like I did. Adjust all seasonings before freezing.

I divvied up the sauce into freezer containers and stashed them away till winter. It made nearly three quarts of sauce.

Now, when you thaw this saucy goodness later this fall or winter, you can use it as is, or toss it in a pot and add olives, peppers, capers, and other spices for a Putanesca Sauce. Or, you can add caramelized carrots and celery along with some ground beef, ground pork and cream for a delish Bolognese Sauce. Toss in some pan roasted wild mushrooms like porcini and portobella, along with some caramelized onion, pancetta and lots of Asagio cheese for a great wild mushroom sauce.

The possibilities are endless.

PS Your house will smell amazing when making this sauce. It rocks.

Fay, Hannah and everything in between

2008-09-07T19:11:00.002-04:00

I think we should have a Tropical Storm every Saturday. Last Friday, it was Fay. Certainly not as dramatic as Hannah, but it made the day a washout, and followed me up to Rhode Island for the weekend. It made Saturday up there a washout as well, but luckily, we had nothing more pressing on our agenda than getting massages, having a late lunch and shopping.

Sunday and Monday were stunningly beautiful, and we spent them at the Rhythm and Roots Festival listening to some terrific live music, grilling lots of veggies from the garden to eat with freshly grilled fish at home, and floating in the pool and watching the falling stars at night. You can see the Milky Way really clearly from my friends house, and the falling stars were showing off.

And then as soon as I left my friends' house, my week went to hell in a hand basket.... My flight was delayed getting out Providence thanks to Gustav, and when I finally got home at 10:00 PM, I discovered that my cat Pumpkin was howling in pain and had a blocked urethra - again. Another trip to the vet, 3 days in the ICU and $1,500 later, and he's resting comfortably at home with another weird haircut to show for it. They had to shave his butt again and it looks like he's wearing ass less chaps. It's pretty funny actually.

While that drama was going on, work was crazy with the opening of a new physician practice, the closing of another one, and two board meetings and a business dinner. I used my house like a hotel through Friday, except that there was no maid service to pick up after me.

Yesterday was a gift. From the moment I heard the rain on the skylights, I slept in and snuggled with the cats, read the rest of a book, lounged around without makeup or contacts, took a nap, didn't touch the computer once, and watched zombie movies all day. Oh, and I made about 2 quarts of roasted garlic and tomato sauce from the bounty of my garden. Recipe and photos in the next post.

So Hannah, despite her watered down fury - was very welcome here indeed. Just the perfect mix of drama and seriously awful weather to prevent anyone from going into the storm unless they absolutely had to - and thankfully, I didn't.

Hypocrite, and it's not an oath

2008-09-03T21:20:00.003-04:00

I'm incredibly stressed for time right now, but this made me laugh out loud:

Seriously though, this whole issue of her daughter's pregnancy is a non issue and should not play a part in anything. The only people that care about this are the media and they look like the absolute idiots that they are for fawning over it endlessly.

On another topic, I have heard more than a few people criticize Palin wondering "how can she handle all her young children and the VP job?"

THAT is THE most sexist thing I've ever heard. NO ONE is questioning how Obama will handle raising a tween and pre-tween in the White House. This is the most hypocritical thing I've ever heard. Michelle Obama is a well respected lawyer and hospital executive who quit her job to devote time to the campaign. No one is wondering about how the "First Lady" will handle raising the kids.

Sarah Palin's husband seems to be a lovely, good looking, stand up guy, with the kind of career that could easily be modified to be primary caregiver to the kids. And even if it weren't - SO WHAT???

Children aren't a handicap, and while I do NOT agree with her politics, I strongly support Sarah Palin's ability to be VP as a career choice.

I just can't imagine being a grandma at 44..... but, it's her life not mine - and I have no doubt she can handle it well.

Blue Book Week

2008-08-28T18:48:00.005-04:00

So - it's been a week since I blogged. No - I'm not on vacation, and I'm not dead - yet.

Our company does annual performance evaluations in one fell swoop every August. I take people's evaluations very seriously, and take pride in making them valuable and personal. I've only been here 5 months, so it is patently unfair for me to evaluate a person on an entire year's worth of work when I've only been working with them for less than half that time. To that end, I have involved many other people in this process.

Nevertheless, I have spent an entire weekend, as well as many late nights watching the Olympics or the DNC Convention, reviewing HR records and trying to craft some well thought out comments for more than 24 managers. I have to admit, despite every effort at personalization, after a while, some of the comments just require a name change, cut and paste, and voila! You have an evaluation.

Now I know what my sister goes through grading hundreds of college level art history Blue Books, trying to be original and thoughtful in your comments for every student. It's draining. Especially the first time out.

The harder part is the delivery. With blue books - you hand them out and post the grades and you're done. There is nothing personal involved unless the student wants to speak to you afterwards.

These evals are personal. Very personal. You're not getting a grade - you're getting a raise. The stakes are higher, and people respond to them very differently. Some of my best performers can't take even the slightest constructive criticism, and some of the worst performers are utterly oblivious to their suckitude. The easy ones are joyful, the hard conversations ("Honey - we need to talk...") are utterly painful.

And so it goes. I had them scheduled back to back on a 45 minute schedule all week.

Last night, I went to a terrific Baltimore Foodies dinner with friends for some relief. PLEASE go to Woodberry Kitchen. It's another home run for my buddy Spike Gerdje as head chef. Everything he touches is just wonderfully crafted, and Woodberry is no different.

Tomorrow I get on a plane and head to New England to float in my BFF's pool, drink her award winning wines, eat the bounty of her garden, and attend the Rythm and Roots Festival. Perfect tonic for this week.

See No Evil - Update

2008-08-21T22:13:00.001-04:00

No surprise here. Beijing allotted three areas for "preapproved protests" during the Olympic Games. So it's utterly no surprise, that 10 Days into the Games not a single one of the 77 applications for protest by 149 individuals has been approved.

In fact, some of the applicants have been detained and jailed by the Public Security Bureau.

Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency reports otherwise. They claim that of the 77 applications:

All but three applications, were withdrawn after the authorities satisfactorily addressed the petitioners’ concerns, Xinhua said. Two of the remaining requests were rejected because the applicants failed to provide adequate information, and the last was rejected after the authorities determined it violated laws on demonstrations.

A representative from Human Rights Watch stated the obvious when they commented that the IOC seems totally oblivious to the fact that they are holding the Games in a repressive regime.

As for seeing any protesters during the Games - don't hold your breath.

UPDATE:

This news out of Beijing yesterday:

Too Old and Frail to Re-educate? Not in China

Wang Xiuying, left, and Wu Dianyuan have been ordered to undergo “re-education” for seeking a protest permit in Beijing.

The two women, both in their late 70s, have never spoken out against China’s authoritarian government. Both walk with the help of a cane, and Ms. Wang is blind in one eye. Their grievance, receiving insufficient compensation when their homes were seized for redevelopment, is perhaps the most common complaint among Chinese displaced during the country’s long streak of fast economic growth.

But the Beijing police still sentenced the two women to an extrajudicial term of “re-education through labor” this week for applying to hold a legal protest in a designated area in Beijing, where officials promised that Chinese could hold demonstrations during the Olympic Games.

Dear China, You should be ashamed of yourselves for treating your grandmothers this way. They are hardly terrorists. Don't you have bigger issues to deal with? Like, say, pollution? Ethnic repression? Underage Olympians? Oh, and what about corruption?

Corn and Basil Pudding

2008-08-21T18:11:00.004-04:00

This is really more of a casserole than a pudding, but it OH so good! Recipe courtesy of Epicurious.com. We made a few additions and changes.

Ingredients
4 cups corn (from 6 ears) - scrape into a bowl and save the "milk"
1 small red onion finely chopped
1 cup packaged fresh basil leaves, torn
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
2/3 c grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup heavy cream
5 large eggs, lightly beaten
salt and pepper to taste

Here are the ingredients ready to go:

Obviously - don't add the eggshells people.

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Butter a 2 1/2-quart shallow baking dish.

Saute the corn and red onion until lightly cooked and the red onion is soft. Transfer to a large bowl to cool. Stir in basil, and whisk in milk, cheese, and eggs until combined.

Pour into baking dish and bake until center is just set, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

MMMM - summer goodness. You're welcome.

Summer Goodness

2008-08-19T22:43:00.001-04:00

I headed home this past weekend for a surprise B-Day party for my brother at our family cottage in Northwestern PA. I swung by the Amish Farmer's Market in Cockeysville on my way out of town to collect what I thought were supposed to be 5 dozen bratwurst, but thanks to a cultural misunderstanding with the Amish woman in the meat department, turned out to be 5 dozen bockwurst instead. No harm, they were gorgeous veal sausages instead of pork, grilled up just great, and everyone seemed to enjoy them. Very German.

Kayaking, fishing, volleyball, horseshoes, bonfires, kids, good food, family, and friends. Summer just doesn't get better than that.

Although I could do without the half dozen mosquito bites I acquired on my ankles.....

The day after the party, my sister and I slept in at my parent's house, had a lovely brunch on the patio and slummed in the pool on floats with my parents, enjoying a perfect summer day.

And then I climbed back in the car and drove another 5.5 hours back to Baltimore....

Tomorrow, I'll post photos of the feast my sisters and I made at the cabin the night before the party while we were rocking out to music, drinking wine, and decorating the cottage with embarassing baby photos of my brother with adulterated cutouts from tabloids.

(photo courtesy of youngest sister)

I like to watch....

2008-08-14T20:06:00.002-04:00

...the Olympics silly - get your mind out of the gutter.

Seriously though, I am SO sleep deprived this week from watching Michael Phelps into the wee hours of the morning all week.

And maybe it's all the advances in training, maybe it's the fact that most of America is overweight and out of shape these days and it's all relative, but there is an element of pornographic awe and voyeurism in watching nearly naked, mostly perfect bodies pushing themselves to extraordinary accomplishments, often times into extraordinary shapes, lengths and heights as well.

2,900 hours of broadcast coverage over two weeks, and at the end of week one, I bet I've watched close to 40 hours of it since last Friday night and the jaw dropping Opening Ceremonies. Sure, I've cooked, cleaned, surfed the web, talked on the phone, and worked during coverage as well, but the Games have been on non stop while I'm at home. I'm afraid if I change the channel, or God forbid, turn it off, I'll miss some quirky backdrop story on an athlete, a not to be missed moment in Olympic history that everyone will be talking about at work tomorrow - but me, or some shot of Beijing that looks familiar or was where I was hanging out less than a year ago.

Despite the pageantry of the Games, the banality that is Bob Costa is nearly unbearable. I mean, he "dismissed" the President of the United States! (I probably would have too - but not on live TV). And Bob - if you're reading buddy - give in to the gray. Jim Lampley has. You look like you're wearing a helmet of Grecian Formula.

With the glaring exception of the Today show crew trying to learn to sing Chinese Opera this morning (think cats being strangled on live TV - I was embarrassed for them), the coverage has been great for the most part.

The best part - hands down - are the athletes. They are just so much fun to watch with their determination, courage, strength, passion, joy, and yes - let's admit it - hot bodies.

Eating Skippy

2008-08-10T11:06:00.002-04:00

The BBC had an article yesterday about the merits of eating kangaroo meat as a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

I'm not sure if I buy that angle, but I can tell you, that kangaroo meat is yummy and should be eaten and farmed. I spent nearly a month in the remote Outback of Queensland about 15 years ago, as part of a scientific research project examining the reproductive systems of red kangaroos. I got the gig courtesy of Dr. E., my college roommate, who is now a research scientist working for the US Geological Survey group out in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Those were the good old days before digital photography, so my photos from the adventure are in a photo album (remember those?), instead of my hard drive, but I have some great photos of us grilling, and eating, kangaroo (and wild rabbits, and emu, etc.).

It's very lean, and has it's own flavor, not unlike venison, but certainly not gamey at all.

While the merits of eating kangaroos are many, there are still cultural barriers in Australia to eating what amounts to their national symbol. The kangaroo holds a unique spot in Australian culture. Worshipped by the aboriginal people, and valued by them as a food source, they are also considered a pest in the Outback by ranchers and farmers competing for valuable grassland for grazing cattle and sheep. The small settlement near the national park where we lived and worked for three weeks, owed its existence to "roo shooters". Guys who make their living culling kangaroos from farmlands. Most, if not all, of that meat ends up as dog food or rots. It's not used for human consumption. They do use the hides, but not the meat. Go figure.

Less than 24 hours

2008-08-07T21:14:00.002-04:00

This is an edited account from my friend in Beijing, less than 24 hours before the Opening Ceremonies:
*****************************************************************************

Yep, I have to say I'm excited...the atmosphere in town yesterday was terrific.

This morning, with my tutor I'm off over to Tian'AnMen Sq to soak it up...and then we're going to an historic site that's been closed for a couple of years...

This afternoon, I'll have to head to the BN (Bird's Nest) mid-afternoon. There's a pre-Opening concert that starts around 5 PM local...don't know if it will be broadcast...it will feature 20+ ethnic groups. My guess is it's to try and lure the audience into the BN (Bird's Nest) well ahead of time. I expect security to be really intense.

My seat (for the Opening Ceremonies) is on the bend right after the start line -- what I think I could describe as the first bend...in Sector D, the lower tier...and I'm only 14 rows back from the infield, so should have a good view.

And, BTW the order of appearance of the participating countries has proved to be controversial...of the 205 countries, Australia will appear 3rd from the bottom! This is all dictated by the stroke value of the first character of the Chinese name...so, in fact all the "Ma" countries -- Malaysia, Mali, Malta etc., - will appear towards the front, as their character is only 3 strokes. Australia has 15 strokes in its name.

Extreme Home Makeover

2008-08-06T11:31:00.003-04:00

While I was busy keeping my leg propped up on pillows with an ice pack for the last five days, my parents descended upon my house like the crew from Extreme Home Makeover to look after my recovery and took on tasks that I either haven't been able to do with my knee all screwed up since April (i.e. anything requiring lifting, bending, or stairs), things I am not handy enough to do, or things that simply require two people to accomplish.

So, after five days, a daily trip to Lowe's, and much swearing, grunting, and pounding....

1. I have a garden gate that finally swings freely, closes securely, and is well attached to the garden wall.
2. I have a new towel bar and tissue holder in the powder room (and my neighbor got the towel bar in her mother in law apt., fixed as well).
3. I acquired a few new tools in the process.
4. All my knives are professionally sharpened to the point that I can shave translucent slices of onion thinner than paper.
5. I have a new, lighted workbench and storage shelves in my basement storage room, and the room is lined with pegboard, shelving, and all manner of brackets and hooks to organize my tools.
6. My garden is weeded, trimmed, pruned, raked, and watered. It's blooming like crazy and the flowers looks wonderful.
7. Blinds were installed in my guest room and den, and valances were hung in the living room and kitchen.
8. My security lights were re-wired to permit motion detection and other features.
9. The chandelier in the atrium has all new light bulbs and was thoroughly cleaned till it gleams - it's really bright at night!
10. The overhead fluorescent lights in the laundry room work again.
11. A trip to the dump in my parent's SUV got rid of bags of trash, window screens and building materials I had sitting in the basement just waiting for a large truck or other vehicle to haul them away.
12. The large, heavy, brass, beautifully patinaed letter that I got from an architectural salvage yard from an old building sign, was hung on my garden wall, and gives the garden a great look.

Oh - and we had some really nice dinners, cocktails and wine in the garden this week.

My knee is getting much better. The swelling goes down daily, the bruising is less angry and purple, although I still need crutches to get around outside the house, and the stitches don't come out till next week.

I am going to attempt to crutch my way in to work tomorrow - we'll see how it goes.

A City of Gorillas

2008-08-06T11:26:00.002-04:00

Aside from being completely astounding, this makes me unspeakably happy.

To think that these gorgeous animals are hiding in plain sight, in numbers so large that they have effectively tripled the previous estimates of lowland gorillas remaining on earth, gives me so much hope.

It's astonishing really, that this many large animals could be unknown from man. Good for them.

Now, let's hope we leave it that way and work to keep their secret.

Guest Blogging from the Beijing Olympics

2008-08-05T08:06:00.002-04:00

While I'm recuperating from knee surgery, I asked my buddy in Beijing if I could post some of her emails as she observes first hand, the preparations for the upcoming Olympics this weekend. If you encourage her, perhaps she'll let me post her photos from the Opening Ceremonies and other events as she witnesses them. Enjoy:
**************************************************************************************
Countdown to *8/8/8*, and the opening ceremony that will commence at *8:08pm* local time.

I cycled across town to Tian'anmen Square last week to see the clock as it marked the 10 day countdown – well actually by the time I got there it was 9 days, 22 hours and 27 minutes. [That's a sentence I never -- ever in my wildest dreams -- thought I'd have cause to write.] In addition, I got a nice shot of the entrance to The Forbidden City with some Olympic signage mounted in the foreground.

During the next fortnight, I'm hoping to take photos of newly gentrified neighbourhoods and some of the extravagant floral displays around town. Now that my Internet service has been restored, I will upload them throughout the Games. As one of the lucky lottery winners, I have tickets to the Opening Ceremony (8th ), the Closing Ceremony (24th ), some athletics events, and a swimming session. In addition I've been invited to a final session of the diving competition. Lots to look forward to once the Games get underway.

So, 8 days to go to the Opening Ceremony, and 625 since I arrived in country. Some days have dragged, but on the whole, time has flown. Unlike the early days, I'm now comfortable getting around town, using the bus and metro systems, and going into local restaurants without feeling too intimidated by linguistic constraints.

In the meantime, I've grown to enjoy some aspects of life here, and continue to abhor others. Learning the language grew on me. At first I was totally overwhelmed by the prospect of tackling it, but quickly realized that I needed to, in order to derive more enjoyment from the experience of living here. Ironically, given that I was daunted by Chinese script in the early days, I now really enjoy learning to read and write characters; however it takes a huge amount of stroke practice, followed up by recognition and recall exercises. That being said, there's still so much to learn, it could easily become a life-long endeavor. For the moment, I'm happy with what I've achieved.

I've grown to really enjoy local cooking, and accustomed to eating from communal dishes as long as I know the contents; however, I remain deterred by the thought of eating donkey meat, dog meat, or dishes containing any type of penis. I understand that Beijing restaurants have been discouraged from serving donkey and dog meat during the Olympic period.

Sanitization of restaurant menus is the tip of the iceberg. The city has undergone enormous change in the run up to the Games – much of it welcome. One of the more positive – but to date short lived -- aspects have been the improvement in local air-quality. Two weeks ago, we enjoyed the most stunningly clear skies that I've seen in the twenty months of living here; however, the past week, the skyline has been alternating between the hazy smog that so often degrades the quality of life here, and what the authorities consider to be an acceptable "blue-sky" day.

Interestingly over the last 6-8 weeks, we experienced thunderstorms, the intensity of which was spectacular. Many of us speculated that the meteorologists were somehow 'playing' with the weather controls. It's no secret that the Chinese authorities have been experimenting for years with rain generation, and cloud manipulation. I recently learned from a foreign environmentalist that during the last few months, there have been accusations of 'cloud stealing' among the provinces that surround the municipality of Beijing. Apparently this activity is all part of the practice routine necessary to ensure a dry Opening and Closing ceremony. According to the state run news agency – XinHua – the Beijing "weather engineering office" is in charge of the massive 'Olympic weather modification' project. Using technology developed by US scientists, cloud seeding is achieved by shooting shells or rockets containing silver iodide particles into the clouds. The icy particles freeze the drops in the clouds, make them continue to grow and eventually fall out of the clouds.

If the fireworks practice session that we enjoyed here one night last week is anything to go by, the country that invented gunpowder will pull out all the stops to provide the pyrotechnic show to beat all. Although the athletics stadium, now more usually referred to as the Bird's Nest, will be the focal point of the ceremony, the firework display will apparently extend as far south as Tian'anmen Square, which is located on the central axis of the city -- about 10km south of the Olympic Village.

During the last month I had the opportunity to run with friends up and around the Village. Now that it is completed, the environment has changed dramatically since my first visit to the area over a year ago. Gone are the migrant workers; gone are the prefabricated buildings that they slept in; and gone are the hole-in-the-wall eateries that fed them for the years that they lived on site working on the iconic structures of the Birds Nest and Water Cube. These workers – like so many others scattered around the city -- came from all over the country, typically working twelve-to-fourteen hour days, seven day weeks and living in extraordinarily primitive conditions. While here, they reputedly earned a wage that far exceeded what they could have earned as peasant farmers back in their hometowns. Maybe, what was visible to us in terms of their quality of life was merely an inconvenience; perhaps their total earnings will provide them with a cushion that will finance an education for their 'one-child', or will fund improvements to their living quarters back home. One can only hope and wish that having had a long distance relationship with their family, it will have been worth while.

In the immediate aftermath of the BeiChuan earthquake, I thought that the massive reconstruction effort needed in that region might provide employment opportunities for these tens of thousands migrant workers who were coming to the end of their Beijing based shelf-life. But, as time passed and I've read that the local authorities in BeiChuan are reluctant to rebuild along the fault line there in SiChuan province. As a result, I've more recently contemplated that the migrants may simply revert to their former occupation of peasant farming.

In addition to the many that worked on the Olympic venues, many more worked around the city on various commercial, residential and government funded construction sites. Some of those buildings that met their pre-Games completion dates are being occupied. Across the city, blocks and blocks of former construction sites have transformed the face of neighborhoods – some spectacular in their architectural design, many others simple – but sprawling in their nature. In the last couple of months acres and acres of retail/commercial space have become available, but interestingly it appears only a fraction of the total available space is occupied.

On the other hand, existing legitimate business that have been operating for years have been effectively choked by restrictions imposed by local authorities. Two Beijing based English language magazines that apparently operated since their inception 4/5 years ago were recently forced to comply with a 'dormant' licensing law. As a result, the June edition of one publication was impounded at the printers and reportedly pulped before it could hit the streets. Many night-time entertainment spots are being forced to apply for 'live-performance' licenses that heretofore had not been required. This week I also realized that Mongolian street vendors who had sold their ethnic jewelry outside one of the local markets have disappeared.

On a positive note, the authorities seem to have completely eradicated the sale of counterfeit DVDs, which previously had been available in the underground access tunnels to the metro system. In addition, the powers that be have closed down what I considered to have been the more 'legitimate' outlets. But, funnily enough a friend relayed the story of one store where a bookshelf on casters masked a wall behind which she was offered a full choice of counterfeit DVD stock.

In addition to the arrival of some national contingents in the Olympic Village, the other big news last week was that the authorities acknowledged the need for three 'zones' where individuals can gather to protest. This was big news; however, what appeared to have been a significant concession transpired to be shrouded in a complex application process that is expected to stifle all but the most persistent applicant. From what I understand of the rules, these zones will not be available to facilitate 'spontaneous' walk-in protesters. Rather, according to a local press report, BOCOG (BJ Organizing Committee of Olympic Games) will notify a designated park; if, as a result of a successful application, there is a demonstration scheduled. No doubt there will be adequate police and possibly army presence – as the local government publication 'Beijing Today' reported on July 25th -- to 'prevent riots or similar conflicts'.

Although not expected to result in crowd misbehavior, the last round of ticket sales on Friday (25th ) provided the authorities here with a taste of crowd control issues. While this went under-reported in the local press, the Hong Kong based South China Morning Post, did not hold back in drawing attention to the experience of their photographer covering what should have been a benign journalistic event. They reported the HK Journalists Association saying 'it was shocked by the violent interference with HK journalists' reporting activities. One photograph published, of a policeman restraining a cameraman as a fellow policeman is clearly pointing at another photographer telling him to stop shooting. Unfortunately, this kerfuffle is not a good start to what could well be a strained relationship between the local authorities and the droves of international correspondents expected in town to cover all events, warts and all, of the Games.

Although I have misgivings about the prevailing political environment, and continue to question the wisdom of the IOC for awarding the Games to Beijing in the first place, I hope for my Chinese friends there is no disruption at the competition venues and that they have the opportunity to enjoy the event as a wonderful sporting occasion.

Unfortunately the Irish team don't carry too many medal hopes, so on any occasion, I may cheer for a US win, or indeed my current host country. Who'd have ever thought it…?

All the best from Beijing on this hot, hazy and humid night...I'm sure the weather Gods will have another go to clear the air between now and Friday night...

OUCH

2008-08-04T10:28:00.000-04:00

Recuperating. No luxury problems here.

I guess I have to buy him something

2008-07-30T20:25:00.002-04:00

I am having knee surgery on Friday. Nothing big, just a little arthroscopy to trim up the torn cartilage from when I blew it out back in April.

While am in the recovery room having an anesthetic hangover, fellow blogger Anonymous Coworker is hosting the final Happy Hour of his blogging career, which will end on August 27 despite bribes and wailing for him to continue.

Here are the details as provided by ACW and edited for content by moi:

Who: ACW and Balto bloggers
What: A happy hour to celebrate, venerate, and adulate ACW
When: Friday, August 1st, let’s say 6pm
(this content edited as NSFW by blog administrator)
Where: Don’t Know Tavern 1453 Light Street, Baltimore, MD 21230
Why: Because ACW is so f@#$%n' awesome and he deserves it and you really really want to buy him a beer for providing so many pants-wettingly excellent laughs over the years.

Have one for me guys....

Whales and Bubbles

2008-07-28T23:47:00.004-04:00

This Beluga whale blows bubble rings out of its mouth to the amusement of visitors in Japan...

(Getty/AFP photo by Kazuhiro Nogi / July 26, 2008)

Meanwhile, this Antarctic Minke whale blows bubbles of a different nature - unveiling the true cause of global warming....

Oh.. and that pink stream? It's called a "faecal plume", i.e. whale poop.

Summer Fun

2008-07-28T23:41:00.002-04:00

Proof that there is no better summer joy for kids of any ~~age~~ species, than running through the backyard sprinkler on a hot summer day.

Sorry for the Dolly Parton soundtrack in advance....

Heath Ledger was the tip of the iceberg...

2008-07-28T21:29:00.002-04:00

Wow. I mean, just WOW

Deaths from medication mistakes at home increased from 1,132 deaths in 1983 to 12,426 in 2004. Adjusted for population growth, that amounts to an increase of more than 700 percent during that time.

Too many drugs, too much pharmaceutical advertising, too much doctor shopping by patients, too much prescribing sleep aids and pain killers by physicians to enable people and keep them from facing their true pain (which they're already self medicating with alcohol), just too much....

The increase was steepest in death rates from mixing medicine with alcohol or street drugs at home; that death rate climbed from 0.04 per 100,000 people in 1983 to 1.29 per 100,000 people in 2004.

If you think illegal drugs are a problem - they're literally a loaded gun, and prescription and OTC drugs are the bullets.

Housing rescue bill heads to Bush for signature

2008-07-27T10:30:00.003-04:00

I think it's sad that the Government has to bail out the housing crisis.

Maybe instead of bailing everyone out of situations they shouldn't have gone into in the first place, Congress will use this crisis to pass a bill to ensure personal and fiscal responsibility and accountability. Laws should be on the books regulating how much credit can be extended to someone and under what circumstances. Taking advantage of rubes who can't calculate simple interest should be a crime, and there should be limits in place for home buyers to keep them from getting in over their head.

It's sad that greed has caused this whole thing. From both sides of the table: buyers and lenders. The credit industry needs an overhaul. I think sliding interest rate loans should be outlawed. You get a fixed rate and manage it. If rates go down, you negotiate a lower fixed rate. Period.

And this bill is stuffed with pet provisions and bloat, including a nearly $4 million to lenders, but nothing to the homeowners it is designed to help.

"No matter what's wrong with it, most of the members of this Senate are going to come in and vote for it, and check the box and go home and say they did something about housing," (Represenative) DeMint said.

Well, way to go Government. Your tax dollars at work.

I saw a news report yesterday that some sleazy real estate agent helped to finance a $560,000 mortgage for a woman who made just $50,000 a year. She's now fighting foreclosure. Surprise!!! They should both be ashamed. How can something that stupid be allowed to happen in the first place?

In other news, one of the families from ABC's hit show, Extreme Home Makeover, are now fighting foreclosure on their dream home, despite the fact that the builder paid off the mortgage on the new home, and ABC gave them $100,000. How did that happen? They took out a loan on the equity of the house for $450,000 just 15 months ago and now they can't pay it back. Someone can't manage money. And if you can't manage your money - you SHOULD lose the house. Get something you can afford - like an apartment or a condo.

Not Yet Dr. McKusick

2008-07-26T14:06:00.004-04:00

A truly great man passed away this week. Victor McKusick.

One of the truly neat things about working at a place like Johns Hopkins, is that depending on what building your office is in, you can end up sharing the same elevator for 10 years with people who literally changed the world. Dr. McKusick was one of them. He was a true pioneer in human genetics. I had textbooks in college written by him.

His research was responsible for discovering things like the genes that controlled and caused: hemophilia, color blindness, Down's Syndrome, Marfan's syndrome, and thousands of other inherited disorders. He was the first to propose the Mapping of the Human Genome back in the 60's (when I was born!), and testified before Congress to get it funded. He truly was the Father of Medical Genetics.

He never truly "retired". He came to the office every day. He almost always had his nose buried in a book as he got on the elevator in the morning. More times than one, I had to gently tug at his sleeve and whisper, "Not yet Dr. McKusick", when the lift stopped, and fully engaged in his book, he began to get off on the wrong floor.

He won the National Medal of Science, the Lasker Prize, and many other awards and accolades, but if ever there were someone who deserved to be a Nobel Laureate - it was Victor McKusick.

He was a giant of a man in science and in life, and Hopkins has lost a legend. I was honored to have known him.

The Lopez Family High Kicks Olympic History

2008-07-26T10:55:00.003-04:00

Why hasn't this story received more coverage? It's truly inspiring.

With wall to wall coverage of Michael Phelps and his attempt to win more medals than any other Olympian in history, there is another record breaking story to watch. The Lopez family is sending all FOUR of their children to the Olympics in Beijing. Something that hasn't happened in over 100 years. Oldest brother Jean is the US National Taekwondo Team Coach, and brothers Steve (a two time Olympic gold medalist already), Mark, and their youngest sister, Diana, round of the rest of the family of Olympians. Children of Nicaraguan immigrants, it's a dream come true.

Even more remarkable? In an effort to cut down on the "giganticism" of the Olympics, and because Taekwondo has only been an Olympic sport since 2000 (Steve Lopez holds all the gold medals ever awarded thus far), each country is limited to just four athletes: two men, and two women (17 yr. old Charlotte Craig rounds out the women's spots). The Lopez family IS the US Taekwondo Team. Therefor, competition at the national level is often even more intense than the international level.

AP Photo/Mark Williams, USOC

"I think about the impact we could possibly make, what a great thing it would be for our country and our family and our sport," Mark Lopez said. "It's a combat sport, but it teaches discipline and good character. As a family, we cherish those values."

Modern Technology

2008-07-24T19:22:00.002-04:00

An actual email thread between one of my most technically savvy physicians, myself, and my assistant. The names have been changed to protect the idiots.

I've got nearly 200 docs to take care of. Imagine this type of thing times 200.

Every day.

>>> "MD" 7/14/2008 10:09 AM >>>
Broadsheet

Could you possibly get me a second computer monitor? I have a USB-based device that allows me to use two monitors simultaneously with extension of the desktop to the second monitor. It is necessary for my work.

If not, no problem.

Thanks so much.

I definitely do NOT need a new monitor - a used one like the one I have would be perfect.

MD

>>> "Broadsheet" 07/14/08 10:37 AM >>>
No problem - we'll send one up. E - please put a help desk ticket in to MIS and see if we can recycle one of the monitors we currently have.

Broadsheet

>>> "MD" 7/23/2008 9:45 AM >>>
E and Broadsheet -

Any news about this at all? E. mentioned I would have the monitor Tuesday.
MD

>>> E 07/23/08 10:27 AM >>>
I have already been in contact with the contact person on this matter. There was some confusion on their part. I will bring the monitor up today.

E

>>> "MD" 7/23/2008 3:15 PM >>>
E -

Thanks so much. The monitor functions perfectly as a display, but it makes a loud humming racket that makes it impossible to use. Any chance you have another one? I have tried everything I can think of to stop the hum, but I can't and as is this is unusable.

Sorry to be such a pain.
MD

>>> E 07/23/08 4:10 PM >>>
MD -

It's no problem! I put in a help desk ticket so someone should be by in the next day or so to take a look at it. I will try to figure something else out in case it cannot be fixed.

Thank You,
E

>>> "MD" 07/24/08 8:15 AM >>>
E and Broadsheet -

I smacked the monitor on its top and the noise stopped. I forgot that basic self help manuver. So all is well. Nevermind.

Thanks
MD

Olympic Photos

2008-07-23T22:21:00.004-04:00

The venerable Boston Globe posted a series of amazing photos of the preparations in Beijing leading up to the games in a little over two weeks from now.

Here, performers practice for the opening ceremonies. LOVE the costumes!

(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

The Darwin Awards have two new winners

2008-07-22T18:48:00.007-04:00

Our first contestant:

Man climbing tree to retrieve Frisbee dies after falling 30 feet"

And the winner is...

Man killed peeing on live train track

The tag line for this one? "The man, a 41-year-old married teacher from Poland, is believed to have been on a visit to Britain to improve his English. "

Insert ethnic joke here.

Driveway Moment

2008-07-21T18:31:00.003-04:00

Actually, a parking garage moment.

I had my pre-op physical with my internist this morning, and after I had been questioned, poked, prodded, peed in a cup, stuck with needles, and suffered general humiliation, I headed to my car and to work at 11:00 AM.

I had the radio tuned to WYPR, our local NPR station, and the second half of the Diane Rehm show came on. Her guest was David Giffels, a journalist at the Akron, OH Beacon and former writer for Beavis and Butt Head. He was touting his new book: "All the Way Home", which is something of a coming of age book for a young father who took on the task of restoring a crumbling old mansion/money pit into a home. I had read a very positive blurb about the book in Vanity Fair, and apparently Oprah is a big fan too.

From his glowing description, it sounds like the house should have been torn down it was in such bad shape (55 aluminum turkey roasters in the attic, overflowing with stagnant rain water, to squirrels, and even the previous owner as a squatter - they thought the house was abandoned when they bought it - she obviously thought differently), that it should have been condemned and demolished.

I was instantly taken with his engaging storytelling style, his self deprication, and the utter naivete he displayed in taking on a project of this scope and magnitude. The interview was at times hilarious and heart breaking.

Thirty minutes later, I was sitting in the parking garage at work, listening to the last 10 minutes of the interview in rapt attention. I immediately went on line and purchased a copy of the book, and I urge you to do the same.

Evening Ritual

2008-07-20T10:24:00.003-04:00

Either this guy has been secretly filming my life, or his cat is a littermate to my cat, Pumpkin. I go through this exact same ritual every single evening when I try to relax for an hour or so - even down to the cell phone falling off the couch.

If this looks familiar, you might remember Cat Man Do, his outrageously funny sketch we all recognize from waking up in the morning to a persistent pet.

Drawing on Both Sides of the Brain

2008-07-20T10:11:00.002-04:00

Talk about patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time....

Watch this clip showing an amazing example of ambidextrousness. If I tried to do this, the right side of the poor guy's face would look like something out of Picasso's Blue Period.

HT: Neatorama

DMV

2008-07-19T08:24:00.003-04:00

Or in the case of Mondawmin Mall - the demilitarized zone....

I'm off to sit with the unwashed masses and local gang members in 95 degree heat to replace my driver's license...wish me luck.

Oh - and don't forget - if you're at Artscape this weekend, drop by the Broadsheet Beer Garden for refreshments.

UPDATE: Going to the MVA on Saturday morning is like going to family visiting day at the State Penitentiary, right down to the metal detector and armed State Troopers. I had an absolutely CLASSIC visit this morning. I arrived promptly at 9:05 AM, only to discover a line that went the length of the building and snaked back in on itself halfway.

The line is so you can get a ticket, from there, you are sent to sit in row upon row of comfortable metal benches and wait to be called on the overhead LCD displays to one of 24 booths where a disgruntled state employee smacks their gum and looks dumbly at a screen running software from the 1980's.

I got my ticket A42 at 9:30 and took a seat. They had already call A36, so I was hopeful that it wouldn 't take too long.

That was my first mistake.

At 10:00 AM, A41 was called. At 10:01, they came on the loudspeaker and announced the following: "We are currently experiencing technical difficulties with the computer system statewide. All MVA services are affected. You can leave, or you can choose to stay and wait for the system to come back on line. We do not have any idea how long our systems will be down. Thank you for your patience."

A loud groan went up from the crowd. Mine included, although at this point, I just laughed, and settled in with the latest edition of Vanity Fair. I decided to give it a half hour and reassess the inconvenience factor. Had I not been the next one to be called - I would have tried again another day.

At 10:35 AM - the system went back up. During my down time, I called my sister to see how her vacation had gone.

"Where ARE you?" she asked. "It sounds like you're in a Mexican day care center".

"Oh, yeah, it seems everyone brings their kids to the MVA. They're running all over the place".

Perhaps the funniest (or saddest, depending on how you look at it) thing that happened is that when the system went down, there were still well over 100+ people in line waiting for tickets. The State Trooper asked them to please sit down and when the system went back up, they could reform the line, taking the place where they had been.

The line just stared at him like he was speaking in Klingon, and for most of the people in line, he probably was. There wasn't a chance in hell that anybody was going to risk a game of musical chairs for their precious spot in line. Uh, uh, no way, sorry. I've never seen such an exhibition of group mistrust and cynicism. So everyone stood their ground - for another hour or so until the system was up and the line began to move again.

Meanwhile, I tried to make polite conversation with the woman processing my license while we waited for the system to warm up and spit out my new one. That was a mistake. I got grunts and blank stares for my trouble.

While I was waiting, her supervisor came over and asked her to process a special kind of license. Without even letting her finish - as soon as she heard "special" - she immediately responded by saying - "I ain't never done one, I don't know how, I ain't been trained". Her supervisor calmly responded by saying, "It's exactly the same process, just use code C5". That fell on completely deaf ears, she just kept repeating "I cain't do it, I ain't been trained!".

After about two go rounds, the supervisor realized it was more trouble than it was worth, and that she was probably better off asking a dog to sit, than trying to get this woman to step out of her comfort zone and lend a friggin hand. Thankfully, the machine spit out my license at this point, and I headed for the door as fast as I could, only to have to walk through a phalanx of smokers blocking the door since the only shade from the heat was immediately in front of the doors, and they'd die like vampires if they stepped into the sun.

I wanted to take a picture of the lines of people and the waiting area with my cell phone, but with half of the people in line looking like their next stop was a meeting with their parole officer, and with the State Troopers watching everyone, I thought the best of it and moved on.

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog

2008-07-18T21:13:00.005-04:00

Hands down, THE most innovative thing on the Internet right now. Part old fashioned comic book serial, part slapstick, part soap opera, part musical. It's a super villain musical!

Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible, Nathan Fillion as the deliciously vain Captain Hammer, and everyone's Lois Lane, aka Penny, played by Felicia Day.

It's a Joss Whedon production, so you know it's gonna be cutting edge cultural entertainment.

And who knew Neil Patrick Harris could sing?

For a limited time only - watch it now! An opera in three parts.

The Singing Sands of Dunhuang

2008-07-18T18:18:00.002-04:00

...are threatening to swallow the city. National Geographic video has a really good piece on the increasing dust and sand from the dunes of the Gobi desert, and their effect on the city, farmers, the region, and even the famous Mogao Grottoes.

There is also some good footage of the camel caravan I rode out into the dunes when I was in Dunhuang last fall.

They talk about having to relocate entire cities to escape the advancing dunes. This is not at all unusual in the history of this region, or of the the Taklamakan Desert Basin. These dunes travel. Entire civilizations have been lost to them. It's no surprise that they might do that again.

Dunhuang is truly an oasis town. The dunes tower around it, and the city abruptly ends at the end of the street when it hits sand:

First

2008-07-17T19:37:00.002-04:00

This is the first of many, many summer tomatoes from my garden. I planted plum tomatoes - seen here - and yellow cherry tomatoes.

I regret that I haven't posted any photos of my strawberry bonanza. They were obscene in their sweetness and perfection. I'm still getting them off the plants in Mid July. Unfortunately, they tend to get eaten in the garden before a camera ever gets close to them.

I promptly sliced this bad boy up with a bunch of other tomatoes and some English cucumber, and arranged it on a bed of baby spinach around a Parmesan Flan, which I then sprinkled with lots of fresh basil, more shredded Parmesan, and good balsamic vinegar....Great summer supper.

Summerfest

2008-07-14T20:13:00.003-04:00

Artscape is upon us, and I am about to become a prisoner in my own neighborhood again for a week or so. Already the streets are blocked off, I have to detour around everything to get to work, and Mt. Royal Ave. is closed while they put up all the tents, stages, electrical wiring, etc... to turn the Cultural Center of Baltimore into, well, the Cultural Center of Baltimore.

With a bum knee (surgery is scheduled in three weeks), I'm not going to be able to get out and walk all over the place and endure the crowds this year, so the crowds can come to me.

If you're heading to Artscape this weekend, swing by Broadsheet's Bier Garten! If you want some shade, a beer, ice tea, cold water, clean bathroom, or even just a little AC for a few minutes and a place to rest up in between concerts - the Bier Garten will be open all weekend. There is NO parking available. Don't even think about driving here - there are too many people, and not nearly enough parking. Take the Light Rail.

Drop me a note off line for directions and hours. I might impose upon someone to bring me some festival food - you'll be well rewarded!

Let's Clean out the Fridge

2008-07-14T19:48:00.002-04:00

I wanted to make something healthy for lunch for the rest of the week, and needed to use up a few things in the fridge, so here's what I ended up with:

Chick Pea and Pumpkin Tagine over Coconut Couscous with Figs and Pistachios

Tagine
1 onion - chopped
1 red pepper
2 large cloves of garlic - minced
1 inch knob of ginger - grated
2 TB olive oil
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp garam masala
1 chili (I use a TB of fresh chilies in a tube)
Can of Garbanzo Beans - drained and rinsed
1 c of cubed pumpkin or butternut squash
2 lg tomatoes - chopped and seeded, or a pint of grape tomatoes on the verge of getting wrinkly cut in halves (you can guess which one I had)
juice from one lemon
2 TB soy sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Couscous
1 c veg. broth
1 c lite coconut milk
1 1/4 c couscous
handful of dried mission figs chopped
handful of pistachio nuts (unsalted)

Saute the onion, ginger, chilies, garlic and spices in the olive oil for 5 minutes. Add red peppers and saute for 3 more.
Add Chick Peas, Pumpkin, tomatoes, lemon juice and soy sauce and simmer for ten minutes, or until pumpkin is soft and tomatoes have created sauce.

While Tagine is simmering, heat broth and coconut milk and bring to a boil. Add couscous, remove from heat and let sit till Tagine is done.

Fluff couscous with a fork, mix in figs and pistachios.

Spoon Tagine over couscous, sprinkle with cilantro and enjoy.

Note: You could use rice instead of couscous, and dried apricots instead of figs, and you can always add different veg. Sweet potato / yam would have been fine instead of pumpkin. If you wanted to add meat - toss in some cubed chicken or shrimp.

The crunchiness of the pistachios were nice, and the tangy taste of the tomato / curry with the sweetness of the pumpkin, coconut and figs were really nice. I think it will be better for lunch tomorrow.

Now YOU can ride the Tour de France

2008-07-13T21:14:00.002-04:00

No - really - you can! My brother is gonna absolutely DIE when he sees what the geniuses at Google have done. Using Google Maps street view, you can literally ride the entire 21 stages of the Tour on your computer. It's freaky. Check it out:

German Engineering and Design

2008-07-13T12:21:00.001-04:00

What do you get when suspend a thousand steel balls on thin cables from the ceiling and program them? A mind blowing kinetic sculpture from the folks at BMW.

HT: Neatorama

Add These To Your Bucket List

2008-07-13T11:10:00.001-04:00

UNESCO creates 27 new World Heritage Sites. And I haven't been to any of them......

New cultural sites inscribed during the 32nd session:

* Preah Vihear Temple (Cambodia)
* Fujian Tulou (China)
* Stari Grad Plain (Croatia)
* Historic Centre of Camagüey (Cuba)
* Fortifications of Vauban (France)
* Berlin Modernism Housing Estates (Germany)
* Armenian Monastic Ensembles in Iran (Iran)
* Baha’i Holy Places in Haifa and Western Galilee (Israel)
* Mantua and Sabbioneta (Italy)
* The Mijikenda Kaya Forests (Kenya)
* Melaka and George Town, historic cities of the Straits of Malacca (Malaysia)
* Protective town of San Miguel and the Sanctuary of Jesús de Nazareno de Atotonilco (Mexico)
* Le Morne Cultural Landscape (Mauritius)
* Kuk Early Agricultural Site (Papua New Guinea)
* San Marino Historic Centre and Mount Titano (San Marino)
* Archaeological Site of Al-Hijr (Madâin Sâlih) (Saudi Arabia)
* The Wooden Churches of the Slovak part of Carpathian Mountain Area (Slovakia)
* Rhaetian Railway in the Albula / Bernina Cultural Landscape (Switzerland and Italy)
* Chief Roi Mata's Domain (Vanuatu)

Natural properties inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List during the 32nd session:

* Joggins Fossil Cliffs (Canada)
* Mount Sanqingshan National Park (China)
* Lagoons of New Caledonia: Reef Diversity and Associated Ecosystems (France)
* Surtsey (Iceland)
* Saryarka - Steppe and Lakes of Northern Kazakhstan (Kazakhstan)
* Monarch Butterfly biosphere Reserve (Mexico)
* Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona (Switzerland)
* Socotra Archipelago (Yemen)

The Perfect Summer Cocktail

2008-07-13T11:06:00.001-04:00

42BELOW Feijoa Vodka, Lemonade, ice, and a cucumber spear - refreshing!

HT: Boing Boing

I can't get no - satisfaction

2008-07-13T10:15:00.002-04:00

If Mick Jagger were a fish.....

This is a rosy lipped batfish from Costa Rica. It's appearance has not been altered in any way. Photo courtesy of National Geographic.com It walks around on its fins looking annoyed. Stop by and check out the other mind blowing creatures on their site.

Plans

2008-07-08T22:21:00.002-04:00

Wooot! Just got off the phone with my best friend.

1. We are flying to San Francisco the first weekend in November and staying three nights with friends and enjoying the sites of San Fran.

2. From there, we drive to Napa where friend #3 has a condo at a swishy resort and has invited us to stay four nights as we endure spa treatments and winery tastings in preparation for the main event: The American Wine Society National Conference in Sacramento.

3. Friday-Sunday we'll be at the wine conference, which was held here in Baltimore just two years ago. My friend is hoping to add to her medal collection for her own award winning wines. This year, she's entering some sparkling wines.

San Francisco, Napa, wines, spas, and best friends....sounds like the perfect vacation. Or at the very least, the perfect chick vacation.

The Back Story

2008-07-08T19:43:00.002-04:00

This is the back story to the human happy feet video I posted last week - Matt Harding.

Lucky guy. He has, without a doubt, the best job in the world, because his job IS the world.

As The Wrench Turns

2008-07-07T21:44:00.001-04:00

My father's dream come true....

Premiering 8 p.m. ET Wednesday (check local listings) on PBS, the show follows Click and Clack's exploits co-hosting a nationally syndicated radio show and running a car repair shop that mirrors their real-life Good News Garage in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The show will air in two-episode blocks for five weeks.

Buddha's Caves

2008-07-07T21:04:00.003-04:00

The New York Times had a fabulous article in their Travel/Culture section this weekend on the Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang, China.

I was lucky enough to visit this cultural treasure on my trip to China last year, although I have to admit, I had never heard of them prior to my visit. Having now seen them, I realize that I may have been lucky enough to have seen one of the great wonders of the world in person for the last time.

It was hard for me to document my visit to the caves since you cannot take photos, there are only 10-12 caves open to the public at any given time, they have no lighting, everything is done by flashlight, and often you can't even enter the cave completely. Despite all these conservation tactics, they are still deteriorating.

This article describes the caves in marvelous detail, and the slide show is magnificent. I bought the Getty Museum coffee table book describing the caves and their history just after I learned we were going to get to see them, and I was not disappointed.

I'm not sure why this cultural heritage sight has not gained more universal renown outside of China, but believe me, it's one of the most spectacular records of religious significance on earth and deserves preservation and academic study.

There are now talks of providing virtual museum access to the caves from a remote location using a multi media approach, which, in many ways would be visually superior to what I actually saw, and frankly, our docent's thick, Chinese accent made it hard to understand the narrative at each cave.

While virtual reality may resolve or delay the deterioration issue, there is no virtual reality for awe when you see something this magnificent in situ......

Because She Can

2008-07-04T14:52:00.002-04:00

My hero. Dana Torres, a mother of a two year old, is competing for a spot in her fifth Olympics.

At age 41.

In swimming - a sheerly strength and aerobic sport, unlike equestrian events or archery.

At age 33, in the 2000 games in Sydney, she was the oldest Gold Medalist for America. In many ways, she steals a bit of the limelight from the Michael Phelps and Katie Hoff.

Ask Torres why she has returned to high-level competition, and the simple answer is because she can. Her coach, Lohberg, added: “And let’s not forget this. She’s nuts.”

Idiot

2008-07-04T07:56:00.003-04:00

That would be me......

I was up at 5:15 this morning to get to the airport by 7:00 AM for an 8:30 AM flight to Cleveland for our family reunion in North Madison, OH this weekend. Packed, at the airport, and in the security line by 7:10 looking forward to grabbing a Starbuck's and reading my book before the flight.

The plan was to hit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum and have lunch at Lola's, and maybe even browse the stacks at Zubal's before heading over to Geneva and meeting my family at the Old Mill Winery for dinner this evening.

That was the plan. In the security line, I discovered that I had left my driver's license in my other bag from my trip to Portland. With no photo ID, I wasn't going to get very far. I turned around and came home....

I'm now booked on the 5:55 PM flight (and Southwest didn't charge me a penny for the change!), and while I may still get to have dinner at Lola's, I'll miss dinner with my family, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will have to wait another day.

Bummer. It's OK really - there are a lot of things I need to get done here, and it will be time well spent....

UPDATE: Good news / bad news.

Bad: It would appear that I have managed to thoroughly misplace or lose my driver's license, and the MVA sure as hell isn't open today. I think I might have accidentally tossed it out with some receipts that were with my luggage tag and boarding pass leftovers from my Portland trip.
Good: I can fly with my passport.
Bad: I need a driver's license to rent a car.
Good: My cousin Andre's flight from Miami arrives about 15 minutes after I do.
Good: My parents are picking us both up at the airport
Good: Made reservations at a fab new restaurant in Cleveland for all of us: Light Bistro

The Stream of Life

2008-07-03T18:43:00.003-04:00

I think most everyone's seen this little video by now, but if you haven't - it's the best 4 and a half minutes you'll spend all week, and I defy you not to well up a little somewhere about halfway through.

Matt Harding spent 14 months visiting 42 countries and did a stupid little dance in each and every one which his friend recorded. Every now and then, the locals joined in. This is the result. The music is the Indian poem "The Stream of Life" set to music.

I think my favorite are the Papua New Guinea warriors.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Happy Birthday, Human Perfection

2008-06-30T19:45:00.003-04:00

Baltimore's own Michael Phelps looks set to bust open Mark Spitz's long standing accomplishment of 7 Gold Medals in Beijing after last night's Olympic Trials, and may break the record for the most gold medals ever won by an American in Olympic history. The Tiger Woods of swimming.

I forgot to blog about running into him a while back when he was in town on a rare visit home in between trials and training. I was running errands on a Saturday getting ready for a party at a friend's house later that day and I stopped in to Whole Foods in Mt. Washington.

And there he was, all 6'4" of human perfection. He had just come from the Meadowbrook Swim Club across the street, where he swam enough laps in that pool while he was growing up to circle the globe a few times. I think he had appeared at some pre-Olympic pep rally for his old swim team and was signing autographs. At Whole Foods, his hair was still wet, tucked under a baseball cap with a T-shirt, soccer shorts and flip flops. There is not a molecule of fat on the guy, it is all sinew and muscle.

There are probably only a few hundred people on earth in as perfect physical shape as this guy is at this moment, and most of them will be in Beijing in about 40 days. It's stunning. And yes, I stared. How could you not?

Today is his 22nd birthday - happy birthday Michael.

image courtesy of Brittanica: TM and © Speedo, all rights reserved/PRNewsFoto/AP Images

Bundle of Joy??

2008-06-29T13:45:00.003-04:00

I've always wondered about this, and now what seemed to be a biological statement of fact, has instead been shot full of 21st century reality. It's no surprise that the demands of today's high tech, fast moving, more expensive lifestyles are the cause of much of this change.

"....parents are about 7 percentage points less likely to report being happy than the childless.

The most recent comprehensive study on the emotional state of those with kids shows us that the term "bundle of joy" may not be the most accurate way to describe our offspring. "Parents experience lower levels of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers," says Florida State University's Robin Simon, a sociology professor who's conducted several recent parenting studies, the most thorough of which came out in 2005 and looked at data gathered from 13,000 Americans by the National Survey of Families and Households. "In fact, no group of parents—married, single, step or even empty nest—reported significantly greater emotional well-being than people who never had children. It's such a counterintuitive finding because we have these cultural beliefs that children are the key to happiness and a healthy life, and they're not."

Ode to Cousin Adji

2008-06-29T09:48:00.002-04:00

I was perusing Epicurious.com, looking for a vegetarian Moroccan dish I could make in my tangine. The reviewer comments on many of these recipes hold valuable tips for making the dish better, altering it to meet specific tastes or nutrional requirements, or warning you that it may in fact sound better than it is.

I don't know whether or not this comment was for real, but there is very little bogus commenting on these recipes - I mean, what's the point? But this one just cracked me up. And she even gave it 3 out of 4 forks. I may have to make in honor of cousin Adji....

11/ 08/02
Baba from US Territories

Good food, but my cousin Adji died suddenly during the supper. I believe that it was his gout and a combination of small shoes. Pushbawa, his widow, insisted that it was that the coriander was not cut in small enough pieces. To avaoid family quarelling, we have chosen to never make the dish again. In turn, Pushbawa will agree to remain in black for 12 years in honor of my cousin. Win/win

The Dalai Lama's Brother

2008-06-28T16:08:00.002-04:00

This is a fascinating read. I had no idea that the Dalai Lama had a younger brother, much less one that is bipolar and has anger management issues.

"Tendzin Choegyal is the Dalai Lama’s youngest brother. Aside from being related to one of the holiest persons alive, TC is a rebellious soul who dropped out of college, spent a couple of years as a paratrooper in the Tibetan contingency of the Indian army, survived alcoholism,and found peace through a blend of Buddhism, lithium, and reading the news on the Internet. When I met him at his home in Dharamsala, India—the Himalayan town that houses the Tibetan government-in-exile—we talked about reincarnation, war movies, Steven Seagal’s crazy outfits, and the preservation of Tibetan culture."

Sheeesh....

2008-06-24T07:46:00.001-04:00

Katy Couric and an old high school classmate are kidnapped by architectural terrorists (don't ask). After 4 years, I discover them, they are rescued, and there is a big parade with awards. On the way to the parade I get lost in Heathrow Airport which just happens to have a huge shopping mall where wild animals roam free and there is an amazing white water / river raft type of ride down the Amazon.

What did YOU dream about last night???

One step forward, two steps back

2008-06-22T20:29:00.002-04:00

This was the first free weekend I've had in more than a month, and the last three weeks have been flat out hectic with work and travel. As usual, with an entire weekend stretched out before me, I make a list of things to get done that is hopelessly optimistic.

This weekend was no different, and was compounded by the fact that my knee is acting up and was really painful. I took extra non narcotic pain killers yesterday, but today I had to resort to an ice pack and a Vicodin nap on the sofa when I got back from the grocery store. I think I need to call my orthopedic surgeon tomorrow and see if I can get another corticosteroid fix, and make an appointment to get a little arthroscopic surgery.

Things that got done:
- Unpacking from last week's trip to Portland.
- Laundry - not all of it though
- Clean up the kitchen, run the dishwasher
- Damp mopped the floors
- Picked up clutter and put things away
- Clean the litter boxes, empty trashcans for trash pickup tomorrow
- Grocery shopping - all I had in the fridge was condiments - literally.
- Dropped off the dry cleaning and picked up stuff to take to the cookout.
- Made an awesome mushroom bolognese sauce to pour over tagliatele pasta for dinner, and leftovers to freeze.
- Blogging, paid bills, caught up on correspondence, did some League work
- Attended a great BBQ party with some great friends.

Things that didn't get done:
- Deadheading the roses, weeding the garden, and cutting the grass
- Going to the gym (bad Broadsheet)
- Fixing the back gate. I bought the hardware, but never got to fixing it.
- Washing sheets and towels. Too many trips up and down the stairs for my knee to handle.
- Reseating the hard drive from the desktop computer and transferring files to the laptop.

So far, I only have two evening commitments this week - a crab feast on Wednesday, and our neighborhood Band Concert on Thursday, so hopefully, I'll get caught up in time for next weekend.....

"Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants"

2008-06-22T13:12:00.003-04:00

I am a huge fan of food writer Michael Pollan. He's the only person I know that can make the sex life of corn plants riveting literature.

I just finished his latest book "In Defense of Food", and I think I'm going to embark on a little experiment this summer. I'm going to give vegetarianism a try. If you've read any of Pollan's books - you'll understand why. The rapidly increasing cost of corn for bio fuels is driving up the cost of all other foods. Corn prices are rising faster than oil prices. A lot faster. That, and our primary source of protein in this country, chicken and beef - were never meant to eat a corn based diet. Cows are ruminants - they are designed to eat grass, not antibiotic laced, hormone fueled, corn feed.

Now, I'm not gonna get all militaristic about this. This is a choice for health reasons, not ethical ones. Hell, I had some awesome BBQ ribs at a friend's cookout last night, and if you offer me some grilled chicken or steak - I'll be happy to take you up on that. But at home, for meals I prepare myself, I'm going to focus on whole grains, veggies, and pasta for a few months and see how that goes.

My mom gave me Mark Bittman's vegetarian bible "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian" for Christmas, I have the Moosewoood Cookbook, and I have a couple of traditional Indian cookbooks that contain mostly vegetarian recipes in them. I'm also a big fan of the food blog "101 Cookbooks", a vegetarian weblog, and Heidi's recipes are just stunning for their creativity, flavor and downright prettiness. I will still enjoy fresh eggs, and organic milk and cheeses - I could not survive a cheese free diet, and the occasional strip of bacon for flavoring may come into play - because what is life without a good piece of bacon? But I think the good old days of a huge piece of protein surrounded by skimpy sides of a starch and vegetable are over.

"In an octopus's garden in the shade"

2008-06-22T12:40:00.003-04:00

I don't think this is what the Beatles had in mind when they wrote that song. Here in Maryland, amongst the resurgence of Victory Gardens, and the growing popularity of Farmer's Markets and eating local, seasonal items (which is all too easy to do here with the bounties of the Chesapeake), there is a growing trend of home oyster gardening. More than 1,600 Maryland homes are taking part!

Though the Chesapeake oyster is at an estimated 1 percent or less of its historic bounty in the bay, a victim of water pollution and sediment runoff from development, the nonprofit environmental group (Chesapeake Bay Foundation) and its volunteers have put roughly 7 million oysters in sanctuaries since 1997.
''They're dirty little guys, and they don't smell good, but you always feel really good after you plant them,'' said Tiffany Granberg, a CBF employee who loaded up several dozen buckets of homegrown oysters Thursday on a boat docked outside the group's Annapolis headquarters.
Volunteers pay $75 for four oyster cages and a seminar on how to raise them. In the fall, they get several thousand ''spat'' -- baby oysters the size of the nail on one's pinky -- and instructions on how to raise them. The volunteers tie the cages to docks, leaving them a few inches below the water, and haul them out twice a month or so to rinse them.

Under home owner's docks or tied to ladders, the baby oysters take 9 months to grow and then are returned to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation where they are seeded on oyster sanctuaries in non commercial fishing areas in the Bay.

Good News

2008-06-22T11:56:00.003-04:00

This is a welcome announcement. I really don't see that NBC had any other logical choice given the importance of an election year and the gaping chasm that Tim Russert's loss has created in their news division.

Images of Oregon

2008-06-22T11:37:00.004-04:00

A few more images from Portland, OR.

The Japanese Gardens:

And in Chinatown, a bit of reverse Chinglish:

And if you've ever wondered why Oregon beef tastes so good? There's a reason:

A rose by any other name....

2008-06-22T11:31:00.003-04:00

The Rose Garden in Washington Park, Portland Oregon.....

This is "Rainbow Sorbet"

"American Beauty"

"Cherries and Cream"

And, although it's not a rose, it sure was pretty - a Poppy that would make Georgia O'Keefe jealous.

Two of my favorite people

2008-06-19T22:47:00.002-04:00

....were awarded the United States highest civilian award today, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Dr. Ben Carson, a Baltimore legend and former Hopkins colleague, and Dr. Donna Shalala, who was once the Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, and is now the President of the University of Miami.

I knew Donna as the UW Chancellor, and then later when she was Health and Human Services Secretary for the US under Clinton. She attended a number of UW events I hosted for the Alumni Association, and for the Wisconsin State Society events in DC.. I also met her mother on a number of these occasions - including an away game at Penn State. A formidable woman in her own right, Edna Shalala is a lawyer who was in her late eighties when I first met her, and still playing tennis. Edna was a USTA national champion in both singles and doubles in the women's 80s and older category. Now well into her nineties, she was present today when Donna received her medal.

Congratulations to both of them - well deserved.

Portland Oregon

2008-06-19T21:40:00.002-04:00

I had never been to Portland, OR and had always wanted to visit there. Therefore, an invitation to represent the State of MD at the National League of Women Voters Convention (also known as the national "Chicos" meets "Cold Water Creek" meets "Talbots" convention with a liberal dose (pun intended) of "LL Bean" and "Eddie Bauer") was a welcome opportunity.

This is perhaps the most common perception of Portland:

Au contraire!!! The weather was exquisite during our entire stay. Sunny, cool and beautiful. The air was SWEET. You could literally taste it. The light was brighter, and the air was cleaner by a LOT than on the east coast. Despite this, sadly, you could still make out a brown haze around Mt. Hood in the distance. This photo was taken mid day on perhaps one of the clearest days of the entire year. Welcome to global climate change.

Portland is definitely a city of contrasts. From their pioneering, independent spirit, to the current alt.indie culture, to the influx of Japanese and other immigrants, it is the perfect city for people watching.

We received a flyer under our hotel room door the second morning we were there, notifying us that the streets around the Hilton would be closed for a few hours for the "Portland Pride Parade".

What do you get when you mix 1,000 feminists and a Pride Parade? A lot of happy, enthusiastic spectators. Our entire convention emptied out into the streets to cheer the parade and march with them.

The parade opened with the "Dykes on Trikes" delegation (there are so many entendres in that statement, I don't even know where to begin), and was followed by the "The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence". Always a crowd pleaser at any LBGT event.

Sister Anna Wrecks Ya and her posse:

Now the cool thing about Portland was the amazing turnout from the entire community for this event. Families with strollers, old people, young people, etc... It was like any turnout for any major parade in any major city. Face painting, balloons, clowns, etc.. OK, so the Furry element was a little too fetish, but the kids just thought they were mascots.

And then there were the traditionalists. When I shot the photo of the Sisters, I turned to see this Japanese woman in full kimono dress looking on. This is what she wears every day - she was not in costume.

I'll post photos from the Rose Garden, Japanese Garden and other Portland locations tomorrow.

The Joyful Duty of the Honesty of Service

2008-06-18T20:06:00.008-04:00

I've missed a few important events here at Casa de Broadsheet over the last few weeks.

Lemme try and catch up, but not perhaps in chronological order.

I flew to Portland, OR early last Friday morning. When I landed, there was a news alert on my cell phone. "NBC 's Meet the Press News anchor Tim Russert is dead of a reported heart attack".

I was shocked. The first thing I said to my travel companion was; "isn't it ironic that he died on Fathers Day weekend - after all he wrote about Big Russ and his son".

Well, I didn't have time to react or watch anything other than a few seconds of CNN in my hotel room over the weekend, or for the next few days, until now.

His son Luke said that "there was never a day that went by that I didn't know my Dad loved me completely". That's the best memory / reality you can leave anyone. Hands down.

I wanted to embed the Springsteen video tribute here, but the best one is being hosted by CNN and I can't embed it directly, so here is the link.

Please go here....
to watch the tribute.

Karma or Irony?

2008-06-12T22:18:00.002-04:00

Look, I don't have any interest in poking fun at the weather related devastation and misery in the Midwest right now, but this article on CNN did raise my eyebrow, and perhaps touched my funny bone as well:

"The storm also destroyed several buildings at Kansas State University, including a wind erosion lab..."

I mean - seriously, a wind erosion lab flattened by a tornado - that's karma.

The Dells

2008-06-11T18:49:00.003-04:00

I spent a lot of time in the Wisconsin Dells one summer in college when I was lifeguarding in Madison, WI and dating one of the water skiiers in the Tommy Bartlett Show , about an hour and a half north of Madison, on my days off. My family even came out from PA one week to visit me and stay in a resort.

The Dells are a very All American summer resort. It's got the cheeziness of the Ocean City Boardwalk and Six Flags Amusement Park, mixed with the Midwestern charm of a big lake and summer homes.

Not so this summer. Lake Delton is gone and the water skiiers are literally grounded.

I have very fond memories of that summer, and the Tommy Bartlett show has been operating for more than 50 years. I hope they can refill the lake and rebuild.

Turkey Swiss Melt

2008-06-11T18:44:00.001-04:00

Swiss melt under Turkey pressure at Euros

This is an actual headline on CNN at the moment describing a European Cup soccer match. I think an editor at CNN was having a slow day.....