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Prepare to Stop

19 Jun 2013 by KRAG

Simple LivingIt’s been a tough couple of weeks.

After Memorial Day, my wife’s mother went in for surgery, and she’s still in the hospital now, almost three weeks later. We’ve gone from the staff saying we should “prepare ourselves” to everyone being yippy-skippy and talking about “full recovery.” Thankfully, they’ve been in that order, and now things are looking pretty good for the old gal.

For a while, though, our upcoming vacation was anything but a sure thing. We nearly canceled it a couple times, and then we feared we’d need it for other, non-vacation purposes (as with last year’s “holiday vacations,” taken before and after the death of my mother). And, for several days, the idea of taking time off and enjoying ourselves just didn’t seem possible. Or proper. Continue Reading »

Posted in Seattle | Tagged , , | 10 Comments »

Earthbox Update – Wk02

18 Jun 2013 by KRAG

Mahonia after rainFrom the Hoodathunkit Dept: This just in…

To the stunned surprise of many–myself included–my vegetable plants are thriving in their Earthboxes.

When I first assembled the boxes, I plunked in the starts and thought, Damn, they’re small. And they were. From their 4″ pots I took them, each only a couple inches high at most, and put them in the big containers. The zucchini and tomatoes looked especially puny, and I despaired of any measurable success.

Now, it’s been two full weeks. Our weather has been pleasant, but not hot [oh, er, I mean…ahem…it rains here every day, yes…don’t come to Seattle, it’s awful, you’ll hate it] and that little slice of yard gets good sun [yeah, like the sun ever comes out…] for late morning and all afternoon. The sun doesn’t set until after 9PM, here at summer’s solstice, so it’s a good long blast of sunshine. Continue Reading »

Posted in Gardening | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments »

Baklava a la Moi

17 Jun 2013 by KRAG

Simple LivingThis weekend we went to a GNOIF (Game Night of Indeterminate Frequency) over at our friends’ place. It’s a great time for convivial banter amidst board and card games of varying complexity. Everyone brings something potable and something noshable. I brought a bottle of sangiovese from the winery at Castello di Amorosa, and the finalized version of my baklava, a recipe I’ve been finessing for some time.

I can’t share the sangio with you (it was good, though), but I can share the recipe for baklava.

In this recipe, I cut the sometimes cloying sweetness by using salted pistachios, and by using honey for the syrup instead of sugar. The clean flavor of the orange blossom water, and the high, bright notes of the cardamom and the Vietnamese cinnamon also help bring the flavor profile up out of the Too Sweet Valley.

Here ’tis.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Recipes | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Silver-Lining Time

13 Jun 2013 by KRAG

(Note: this post is not about the US Government trolling the internet and spying on law-abiding citizens. This post is about Americans and their expectations of privacy on the internet. Okay. Off we go.)

If there’s one good thing to come out of this NSA-snoopery debacle, it’s this: Americans will finally be disabused of their long-held belief that there is privacy on the internet.

(And if any of you still believe that there is privacy on the internet, drop on by; I’ve got some genuine Louis Vuitton bags I’m letting go at a great price.)

For a decade or more, Americans have been completely unreasonable in their expectations about the internet. We think that, because we use it in our homes, anything we do there is as private as anything else we do in our homes.

This is utter rubbish. Continue Reading »

Posted in Culture, Hi Tech | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Why I Write

12 Jun 2013 by KRAG

Stack of BooksYeah, sure.

“I write because…because I must,” he said as he fell back in a swoon, hand to forehead.

Blah, blah, blah. Flip it to the B-Side, Sonny.

[Jeez…how many of you don’t know what I mean by “B-side,” I wonder?]

Let’s drop the dramatics and be real for a moment.

The truth is, if I never wrote another word, if I never ventured another sentence of prose, I would not die. Yes, that’s right. If I never wrote again, I wouldn’t spend my life in abject misery. I wouldn’t feel the lack of a pen in my hand like the ache from some phantom limb. I wouldn’t bemoan the globe’s loss of my mellifluous prose (nor, most likely, would the globe).

No, I do not write because “I must.” Nor do I write for fame (duh!) or fortune (ditto!). Nor do I write for the approbation of my peers (hell, they’re so busy they can’t even find time to read my books, much less swamp me with approbation.)

Obviously, there are reasons I write. You don’t write nine novels without sufficient reason. But do you want to know why? Seriously, do you want to know?

C’mere. I’ll tell you. Continue Reading »

Posted in Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 20 Comments »

We Three Kings

11 Jun 2013 by KRAG

Do you moue and roll your eyes when someone mentions Shakespeare? (If so, then I don’t know why you read this blog.) But if you do, if you think Shakespeare is nothing but a collection of thee’s and thou’s, if you find it all just stuffy and boring and completely incomprehensible, then I have the perfect entrée for you.

As the centerpiece of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad, the UK (in the form of the BBC) have created a new version of Shakespeare’s royal tetralogy collectively known as The Hollow Crown, and it is wonderful. More than that, though, it is accessible, it is totally comprehensible (both in plot and in language), and it is a joy.

The Hollow Crown comprises four of Shakespeare’s histories–Richard II, Henry IV Parts I and II, and Henry V–and in these you will not find any star-crossed lovers, any intricate plots. You won’t find women disguised as men nor any twins separated at birth. You’ll find no trickery gone awry and no semblance of death. None of that, here.

In The Hollow Crown, you’ll only find clean lines of action, kings trying to rule, subjects in revolt. You’ll find wenching and drinking, smooching and smiting, usurpations, successions, and war.

Easy peasy. Continue Reading »

Posted in Culture, Movies | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Check Under the Hood?

10 Jun 2013 by KRAG

Blue SunThis is your bi-annual reminder about regular diagnostics and backup procedures.

“Jeez, Unca Kurt! That’s boring!”

Sorry, chirren. This is Important Stuff.

This past weekend, I was thankful I had taken my own advice.

About 2 weeks ago, during my regularly scheduled diagnostics run, the program (the HP-supplied Hardware Diagnostics Tool, powered by PC-Doctor), the tests reported errors on my main hard drive. Specifically, it was an HD521-2W error code which meant (I learned, after a quick search) that IO errors were occurring on the main partition.

Translation: my C: drive was dying. Continue Reading »

Posted in Hi Tech | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

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