The same but different

It’s  a bit like playing Marco Polo, keeping up with me. I say “Marco” and by reading this you say “Polo”.

The training blog had run its course. Lately I’ve been as interesting in talking about cooking, gardening and all manner of other things. So, I asked Laura if she’d mind terribly if I co-opt some of her blog. She was kind enough to agree. We discussed it a bit further and decided to use the anvilorhammer.com space that I already own, rather than the writeifyoufindwork space. I assume we’ll allow the later to lapse (you have to pay a nominal fee each year to keep it going).

So, here we are, both of us. We’re here to talk to family and friends. We’re here to talk about what we’re doing, what you’re doing. Our goal is to make it easy – easy and fun. So, I’ll set up various services for the blog (email subscription, new google search box, themes and more). You’re invited to offer feedback.

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September 12, 2009 by Mike in Technical Schmechnical

Our deck, our weekends, ourselves

Last weekend and this, we’ve been relatively busy doing various and sundry things: catching up on our Netflix rentals just lying around (Testament of Dr. Mabuse, Story of the Weeping Camel, Rammstein Live aus Berlin), grocery shopping, spring cleaning, new recipes (espresso mocha cake, orange radish salad, whole wheat spinach salad from Ellie’s cookbook), taking Bern to Oregon Ridge, recovering from commencement, forgetting then remembering family birthdays (Sharon, grandma) and trying to figure out how to atone for our self-centeredness in May, enjoying Mike’s week off from classes.  We also did the following:

We got some great new Ikea furniture
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We potted some peppers, garlic, green beans, cucumber, and zinnias on this corner of the patio:
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We potted some tomatoes (two varieties), and sun-loving flowers on this corner:
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It call comes together nicely
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One more for good measure of Mike and Bern at Mike’s study corner:
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Other than that, all is well and we hope to seal our deck furniture over the next week.  We’ll try to get the chairs done tonight, and maybe the table later in the week after the next cool front blows through.  The table has two fold-out leaves which makes it approximately 5.5-6 feet long when unfolded.  We managed to play “Ticket to Ride” on it with no problems, as well as eat and read in the evenings.  Bern is a bit suspicious, since she is typically shaved on the patio but she loves to sniff the air in the evenings and we think it further socializes her. 

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May 31, 2009 by Mike in Chocolate biscuit

Why we should pay our taxes greatfully

No one likes to hand over their money but I have long held that we should be greatful for our tax situation. I’ve disagreed the teabag protest since I first heard about it. I’m glad to see it addressed by the daily show.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M – Th 11p / 10c
Tea Party Tyranny
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes		 Economic Crisis Political Humor
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April 18, 2009 by Mike in Uncategorized

Thanks

Thanks to all the family that joined us in Minneapolis and the friends who provided guidance. We had a great time and were glad to see everyone. For Laura it was a return to a city she enjoys and for me it was a great chance to get to know a new city.
It’s hard for me to think of a lot to say since you were all there. We really did enjoy getting to know the city. We enjoyed looking homes despite being several years out from buying. It helped us see what we were going to be looking at and it gave us a lot to discuss with regard to our preferences and desires when that day comes.
I can’t imagine how the week could have been a whole lot better. The weather was perfect, we had family and friends and we had access to all the best areas. Laura and I enjoyed Lake Harriet more than any other location in town. Should Minneapolis become our home, it seems very likely that we would aim for that region.
I collated that handful of pictures I took and those taken by the Wyses and put a small collection together on Flickr. Let me know if you can’t view it.

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July 30, 2008 by Mike in Uncategorized

Rehab

Rehab has gone well for me and I’m doing much better. No more ibuprofen, no more ice, no more pain in general. There are a few other things around here that I have neglected while being laid up and their time for rehab has arrived. The first is the tomato plants. Laura and I still have a bet going as to which plant will yield fruit first. We treat them essentially the same and watch what happens. Both have come close but neither has given us a single tomato we could eat yet. Today we decided to help them along.
Better Boy, Pre-rehab Early Girl, Pre-rehab

On your left you have the Better Boy, my pick. He’s in a bad way, those branches that are leaning to the right are on the verge of breaking off. The only thing keeping them from doing so is a makeshift twine sling I added a couple weeks age when I noticed it had drastically outgrown it’s support stake. The plant on your right is the Early Girl, she looked a lot better although we found out later that the only reason was that she was resting her full weight on the side of the building, she couldn’t stand up on her own.

When we planted these tomatoes in their current pots, we vowed to not get bigger pots, after all, the small pot would limit their growth, right? Wrong. These plants had clearly outgrown their pots and we could hardly keep them hydrated as a result. We went to the local garden center and got much larger pots, bags of soil, 6 foot support stakes and dollies for the pots. We figured with all the added dirt, they would be unmanageable at this size.

We potted them the same we had before. We threw down a single layer of cotton cloth on the bottom to keep the dirt from running out the openings, although it does get consumed by the dirt eventually. We laid in fresh soil, broke the plant out of it’s previous dwelling and placed it inside. Because both plants were so overgrown it was all of a two person job. One of us had to support the upper branches while the other did all the dirt maneuvering.

Each plant got new 6 foot stakes put in and got tied to those stakes, more loosely as we went up, to allow for growth. The Better Boy got bonus support near the areas where it was breaking, we’ll just see how that goes. So, I present to you the rehabbed and, hopefully, more productive, 6 foot tall, tomato plants.

As before, Better Boy on the left, Early girl on the right.

Better Boy, Post-RehabEarly irl, Post-Rehab

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July 4, 2008 by Mike in Wild Times with Wildlife

Heated Tomatoes and Reheated Pancakes

“How about this weather?”

That is a frequent question around here now, not one that you usually hear either. For most of the spring it has bee n pretty cool. There was a lot of folks complaining that summer was never going to come. Then it arrived, with a vengeance. It’s a been a boon the the new swimming pool that opened on the last cool weekend we have seen and has been full to the brim since.

We were beginning to find everyone out walking again. Now they have all retreated inside. It’s an interesting phenomenon to us. All these folks have dogs and, presumably, all of these dogs have body functions each day. Yet, when the weather is comfy, we see lots of people out. When the weather is not so nice, we see a couple regulars but most of them don’t seem to be outside at all.

That said, we do make adjustments. Bern gets a little less walk at 4 which frustrates her to no end but she is always pleasantly surprised to get more walk after dinner. Just like everyone else we do a bit of hiding out during the day though too, doing our errands early or late and lazing about during the day, sometimes assisted by Popsicles at staying cool.

As Laura mentioned last week, we are waiting for our first tomatoes of the season. They are racing to to the end. Both plants have blossoms and we’re watching with bated breath to see which one ends up on our plate first. We’ll kep you posted.

This week we had a bit more of the blueberry pancakes we enjoy so much. This week they were a bit differnt than usual. Last week, as I made breakfast, I wasn’t really thinking. I forgot to divide the recipe in half. So we had a huge batch. Oddly, not dividing the recipe in half appears to have tripled the output of pancakes, I can’t say I understand the math. So we froze them rather than throw them all out. They came out pretty good. We’ll have another round to go next week.

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June 8, 2008 by Mike in Uncategorized

I don’t sing, I saaang

I’ve watched more episodes of American idle than I care to admit to, a session or so. I learned real quick that whenever someone comes into the audition and someone says, “So what are you gonna sing for us?” The contestant occasionally says “Oh, I don’t sing, I saaang.” That’s my cue to change the channel. The next couple minutes are gonna be bad, Simon will insult someone and someone will cry, usually Paula.

Laura, on the other hand, can sing. She recently did for the National Women’s Lacrosse Tournament.

EDIT: After we uploaded the video to YouTube we rewatched it and found that the quality had suffered greatly because of the upload. If you would like to get a higher quality version of the video you can download it. This will take several minutes to download since it is completely uncompressed
Laura Sings The Anthem

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May 26, 2008 by Mike in Uncategorized

Gotchas and shared resources

Tuesday night we got a phone call, the caller ID said Ontario, Canada. I was on call and the company the made one of the major pieces of software I was on call for is from Canada, I assumed there was problem. I answered the phone to find a telephone survey. I take them sometimes, ’cause, why not. Having learned from the last one though, I asked how long this would take, two minutes.  In two minutes I was offered the opportunity to watch a TV pilot, then they would call back and get my opinion on the show. Sounds cool, I’ve never gotten to weigh in on a pilot before.

The next day we got a loud knock on the door, UPS had just dropped off my express package. I pulled the DVD out and we started watching, as soon as the show started we smelled a rat: Copyright 2006. It was a show called Rocky LaPorte and it looked a lot like that According to Jim show that is currently on TV. You can find it on YouTube, the comments are very telling. We realized very quickly what we supposed to be watching, the commercials. They looked old too.  None the less, I made a promise so, I let it run. I got my follow up phone call the next night, apparently I didn’t pay nearly enough attention to the commercials, especially Advil, meh.

I won’t be doing that again.

As eluded to by Laura in an earlier post, I joined MAC Express today. I blogged about it on my training log too. It’s not exactly “my kind of gym”. You all know me, I want steel and lots of it. I want rust and sharp corners. This place is wall to wall Pergo with nicely painted equipment and more TVs than a block of row houses. It’s a really good gym though too. It’s not the place to go to get strong. It’s a great place to go for a cardio workout, it’s also a great place for a little rehab which is exactly what I plan on doing with it. There will be times when they don’t know what I’m doing but there will be times when I won’t either :-) . It also means I get to hit the gym with Laura. We used to go to Gold’s together. Although we didn’t do the same stuff while we were there, I kinda liked that. I think I’ll like it again.

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May 18, 2008 by Mike in Stinking Scammers, Training

All this free time

As Laura mentioned, we took a shot at switching chores. i can’t say I really recall why they ended up the way they did in the first place. We both had done all of our own chores when we lived apart. At some point after we got married we just decided who would do what. We both found ourselves a bit dissatisfied with our own short straw so we thought we would try an experiment and trade.

So far, so good. Of course, it takes time for the newness to wear off. At some point any chore seems like drudgery. Today though, we both feel like we have won a free pile of spare time. To Laura, doing the dishes has not seemed like an all day sentence to the kitchen and to me, doing laundry hasn’t seemed like an all day chore that keeps me on a short leash to the house.

So what can we do with all this free time beside wile it away in front of the TV? Laura is enjoying working through the Ellie Kreiger cookbook. She’s found some fabulous recipes in there that we have both benefited from. Her time in the kitchen has given her some time to experiment with them and it’s going well. She’s also taken a look at some of the things in the kitchen that I have looked over and is improving them. Our spice shelf is a wreck and some of our very old glasses are starting to go. So she’s going to lead as we improve those.

For my part, I’m taking the time to work on computer projects that I have long thought about but never felt like I could sit down and do. There’s not much of anything to show anyone yet but I’m engaging in a language called PHP. This blog is written entirely in it. It came as prepacked software so I didn’t write it but it’s the same technology. It’s a good bit of knowledge to have in my career and honestly I could use it to solve several issues we have at work currently.

Both of us are doing a tiny bit of gardening as well. I’ve mentioned the tomatoes before. They are rapidly outgrowing their stakes and cages. No fruit as I have mentioned but that’s a weather thing. Today we were discussing getting some herbs at the local garden center. Perhaps next week we’ll try growing some herbs. We’ve done so in the past and found our largest problem was that we couldn’t possibly use them as fast as we could grow them.

It seems that we are. finding ourselves in a pretty happy place. We can’t imagine how much better it will grow when we can be nearer to everyone.

NOTE: I wrote this on 05/11 but for some reason i filed it in the wrong place so I’m moving it to where it belongs

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May 15, 2008 by Mike in Alone and aloof

Lazy Days

Laura and I have found ourselves in the unfamiliar circumstances of having more time than tasks lately. We had Thursday and Friday arranged off previously, we were planning a trip to DC to catch a show. Since my hip has been a problem we began to question if it was a good idea and since Towson’s semester is winding down it just became a logistical improbability. We decided to keep the time for ourselves, mostly. It was a pleasant experience, having not a lot to do. We’ve done some cooking, some cleaning, we watched Netflix. We just had a very nice weekend.

Spring has been in the air, sort of. I should say that spring has been in the air intermittently. I think everyone has experienced this a bit this year. Several weeks ago it was warm and sunny, everyone dug out their shorts and enjoyed a week that we just plain nice. As we put away our coats and hats, a new round of weather began and things go cool again. Many of the local snow birds began to question having come back from their winter homes.  Again the weather turned and as we were just letting our guards down, it turned right back. Here we are again with another lovely week. The question is “will it hold?”

On one of those earlier turns of weather, we got busy planting tomatoes. We’ve got an Early Girl as well as a Better Boy. We’ve got them in some nice large pots out on the deck. Once a week we give them a little tomato food. The have grew quickly and well when the weather has been nice, the latest cold spell seems to have stopped them momentarily. Now we just wait for the first fruit of our labor.

With some of the free time I mentioned and the fact that I have not been training we have had some time for some mindless entertainment too. We’ve enjoyed watching The Deadliest Catch from Netflix. It’s a documentary about crabbers in Alaska. It makes for interesting viewing. We’ve also got The Riches a show we have never seen. It stars Minnie Driver and Eddie Izzard as a the leaders of a family of gypsies who settle in California and proceed to scheme their way through life. Ask us later how it is.

I’ve got some technical matter of the blog to go attend to, I’m going to add an RSS feed for those that use them. I will also see about adding a newsletter feature, that lets you receive posts in your inbox rather than coming on by to see them. If you look to the left you should see that I have added a couple links, one to my cousin’s blog, who is having twins and one to our Flickr photos. Let me know of there is anything else we can add to make it more interesting to you all.

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May 4, 2008 by Mike in Alone and aloof, Technical Schmechnical

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