Goals 2018 -- December Recap

It turns out that the app I downloaded to track my data usage only shows history for 7 days.  I didn't realize that at the time, so I can't really report on my data usage in a quick and easy way.  What I can do, though, is use my phone's own data tracking to at least report on which apps I've used, and for each one, I can see the usage over the month.  So here's where my biggest apps rank:

1. Mobile tethering.  This increased over the course of the month.  My excuse for this is holiday travel; I used it a bit in the airports.
2. Social media.  Usage was pretty steady throughout the month.
3. App store.  A couple of big days of usage when I was updating apps, but that's pretty typical usage.
4. Documents.  Most usage at the beginning of the month.
5. Internet.  Usage did increase over the course of the month, but again, I was traveling, so that's to be expected.
6. Weather app.
7. Email.

Everything else is below 100 MB of usage.

On the whole, total usage is actually a bit higher than it has been in the last couple of months, but without the mobile tethering, I would have been well below my average.  I'm not sure I can call it a win, but also not a bad way to wrap up the year.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Merry Christmas!

On Becoming a Real Adult

Do you remember when you were a kid, and you always wondered why your parents got up so early, especially on the weekends?  Then when you talked to them about it, you were astonished to learn that they didn't need an alarm clock to get up, even during the week?

This is a thing that's happening to me now.

Another thing that has been happening lately is that my desperate, unstoppable need for sweets, primarily chocolate, seems to be subsiding just the tiniest bit.  We'll see if that holds true through Christmas, though!

Anyway, here's to me finally becoming an adult!

What I Watched -- Nothing to Hide

S and I found an odd little gem on Netflix recently.  It's a French film called Nothing to Hide.  The premise is relatively simple.  A group of friends at a dinner party decide that they will share aloud all incoming messages they receive.

It isn't long before things start to go a bit sideways.

The film is ambiguous in a psychological way.  It really makes you think about what people know about each other, and what they should -- and maybe should not -- know.  And it is definitely an emotional roller coaster. 

Bottom line: a fascinating peek into our lives today.

SLSO Show #3 and Pizza

SLSO would like to wish you Merry Christmas by playing Handel's full Messiah, which it turns out I don't believe I've ever seen before.  I know I have recordings of it, but with music on iTunes these days, I find that I rarely listen to "albums" anymore, in the way they were traditionally intended.  This is true for classical as well as other types of music.

Anywho, Messiah.  I had heard it was originally intended as Easter music; like so many other things (I'm looking at you Thanksgiving, Halloween, Labor Day), it has been co-opted by Christmas.  Now that I have seen it in in its entirety, I can see why that makes sense.  It's the story of Christ, from start to finish and then some -- birth, shaming, crucifixion, resurrection, and the punishment of humanity.  It's not an opera, but it does contain arias and recitatives for the four basic voice types: soprano, alto, tenor, bass.  It is backed, most importantly for me, by a full chorus.  I adore choral music, so even though I'm not much of a fan of the story, it was a win.  It was a long show, but the nice thing about popular shows like Messiah is that they allow a little extra time for intermission, which gave us a few extra minutes to enjoy our drinks and snacks.

Work again interrupted our eating-out-post-symphony tradition, but we had a wonderful dinner at home. S manned the counter, and made a delicious white pesto pepperoni pizza (not something you see very often). 

SLSO Show #2

I was a bit surprised by my second symphony.  I had traded some tickets that were on a day we were unable to attend for this show instead, but my calendar apparently decided that it wanted to not-so-randomly delete events, so I needed to call and confirm this on the day of the show.  Unfortunately, the box office only opens two hours before the show, so I was then in a bit of a rush to get there.

About the show -- it was Joshua Bell, perhaps today's most famous young violinist, performing Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, op. 26.  As with anyone who is an expert at their craft, it is fascinating and enthralling to watch him play.  I also very much enjoyed the story of his Stradivari which was contained in the program.

He plays the 1713 "Gibson ex Huberman" Strad with a Francois Tourte 18th-century bow.  His violin changed hands over the years.  The "Gibson" in the name is George Alfred Gibson, a Brit.  It eventually came to be owned by Polish violinist Bronislaw Huberman.  Huberman was Jewish, and visited Palestine in 1929.  There, he identified the need to begin a Palestinian orchestra.  Huberman auditioned musicians all over central Europe, securing for many of them exit visas from totalitarian countries, which were difficult to get in those days.  While he and his musicians - not quite an orchestra yet - were on tour playing at Carnegie Hall, his violin was stolen.  It landed in the hands of Julian Altman (accounts differ on whether he stole it or whether he bought it off the thief), who concealed its identity for the remainder of his music career by covering its beautiful wood in shoe polish.  On his deathbed, he confessed its identity to his wife, who sold it to Lloyd's of London, starting the process of its return to glory.

Bell was bookended by Elgar's In the South and Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 2 in G major.  It was a good show overall.  Unfortunately, though, I made the stupid mistake of setting a trial on the following day (the Monday after Thanksgiving -- what was I thinking?!?), so I was a bit distracted during the performance and we didn't get to enjoy our usual leisurely dinner after the show.  It was back to work for me.

58Hundred

I try not to write reviews that are going to be only bad.  And to be fair, this one isn't going to be only bad.  But it's mostly bad.

I'm always excited to try new restaurants, and we have a happening restaurant scene here in St. Louis.  So when the owners of The Block opened up a new place called 58Hundred, I was excited to try it.

Aside from the parking (note: the lot does not have a place to turn around), things started out okay.  My Manhattan was pretty good (better than S's Sazerac), but slow to arrive.  He and I got two appetizers to split.  I had a Brussels sprout taco first, and it was quite tasty; it was followed by a brisket slider, which was less tasty.

My dinner was the shrimp po' boy with malt vinegar fries.  The sandwich was dry, and really could have used a bit more flavor and lots more sriracha remoulade.  The malt vinegar fries were lacking in both vinegar and salt.

My second Manhattan, though still slow, remained delicious.

In a nutshell, let this be a cautionary tale.  58Hundred may need a few more months under its belt before you pay it a visit.

Goals 2018 -- December Edition

It's December!  That means Christmas, my birthday, and lots of people who are unhappy about it being Christmas.  Their loss.

I'm going to make the most of this month's holiday spirit of togetherness by cutting down on my phone use.  I've downloaded an app (ironic, I know) to track my phone usage, and hopefully just knowing that it's being monitored will help me use it less.  Stay tuned for statistics!

On top of that, I finally got a chance to do some things today!  Though it did rain last night, which meant I couldn't do the grass-cutting I wanted to do, I did manage to clean up some of the leftover November goals.  I planted my garlic cloves, I mulched over my garden beds, and I'm getting ready to do some bike maintenance.  There is also some hope that I'll get started on the closet before bedtime.  A very productive day overall!

Goals 2018 -- November Recap

My whole November was thrown off by a very unfortunate 1-2 punch of some kind of virus (probably strep) followed by a nasty sinus infection.  In short, I didn't make much progress.  Here's the recap:

- Pulling dead plants from my garden
I made progress on this!  It's not completely done, but my kale, rosemary, chives, and columbine were (miraculously) not dead yet, so I left them for a bit longer.

- Over-mulching for the winter
I mulched over one garden bed, but that was all I could manage with the small number of leaves I was able to chop up during the brief period of time that (a) I had, and (b) it wasn't raining.

- Planting garlic
Nope

- The last grass cutting of the season (although perhaps I should save this one for K?)
Nope again

- The annual closet clean-out
Still nope

- Annual bike maintenance (really this should probably be monthly, but who has that kind of time?)
One more time, for the cheap seats in the back, nope.

The good news is that it's supposed to be pretty nice this weekend, and S and I will be home all weekend, so I'm going to keep at it -- and hopefully tomorrow morning's predicted rain will not materialize!

What I Read -- Holiday in Cambodia

The third of the books I read about Cambodia on my trip there was Holiday in Cambodia.  It's a collection of short stories, and every story is depressing.

Laura Jean McKay does a wonderful job getting into a variety of voices, which are all over the map.  The main characters are a pretty even mix of Cambodians and foreigners, and take place across the several decades of Cambodia's recent history.  As one would expect, there were some stories I liked better than others, but on the whole, this was the least compelling of the three books about the country that I read.

Fun fact: the title is pulled from a Dead Kennedys song of the same name, which is a critique of the looking-down-the-nose that wealthy, educated American kids do with regards to Cambodia.

What I Read: Cambodia's Curse: A Modern History of a Troubled Land

I wanted to read some books about or set in Cambodia before our trip.  Most of the history books I found looked like in-depth political treatises about the Khmer Rouge.  I was ready to give up when I stumbled across Cambodia's Curse: A Modern History of a Troubled Land.

History books (and I'm a history major, so I can say this) can be a bit dry.  If you're browsing a bookstore, you at least have the opportunity to read a few passages to decide how readable the book is before you commit.  I didn't have that opportunity with this book, so I wasn't quite sure what I was getting into.  I was pleased to discover that it was remarkably readable, if a bit repetitive.

Here's a quick rundown of Cambodian political history for the last half century:
- 1950s to 1975: Cambodia, which is a neighbor of Vietnam, had a US-friendly puppet government
- 1975 to 1979: Khmer Rouge fighters, led by Pol Pot, ousted the previous regime and proceeded to kill an estimated 2 million people, started with anyone who was educated
- 1979 to 1989: Vietnam invaded Cambodia and installed a Vietnam-friendly puppet government
- 1989 to 1992: Vietnam pulled out of the country and left the Cambodians to their own devices
- 1992 to 1993: Cambodia became a UN protectorate, with the hope that they would be able to educate and train government officials and then leave the country to govern itself.
- 1993 to present: nominally democratic elections are not actually democratic at all

Joel Brinkley goes into detail on the above history, which constitutes about the first 1/3 of the book.  After that, he looks at the legacy that all this tumult has had on the Cambodian people, and how it continues to affect the country, suppress its economy, and keep its people in poverty -- mostly through an astonishing amount of bribery and corruption at all levels of government.  He also takes a look at the psychology of so many years of uncertainty on the population as a whole.

For example, people in other Asian nations have stereotyped Cambodians as lazy.  Why don't they do something to better themselves?  Brinkley disputes this assumption, by explaining that regime change has been the source of death and destruction for Cambodians for generations.  As a consequence, they have developed an, "it is what it is" attitude.  It's better, he argues, to keep your head down and not complain about your poverty than it is to try to effect change and end up dead.  Cambodians are terribly opposed to conflict of all kinds, and our travel book warned us to be careful about not raising our voices or appearing upset during any interactions with locals.

Overall, it's a mix of depressing and explanatory.  But most importantly for when you're stuck on a long flight or car ride, readable.

SLSO Show #1 and Grace Meat + Three

S and I recently attended our first symphony of the season, and it was great!  For starters, it was the first time I saw the new Music Director (technically the Music Director Designate, until he actually becomes Music Director next season), and he seems like a good pick. David Robertson was so good for such a long time that he will be tough to top, but Stéphane Denève can do it if anyone can. Plus, he has a strong interest in music education and developing the talents of future musicians, and I think that's super important.

Anyway, on to the show.  It was a love-themed performance.  First up was a selection from Berlioz's Romeo et Juliette, followed by Lieberson's Neruda Songs.  The poetry portions of the Neruda piece were sung by a lovely mezzo-soprano named Kelley O'Connor.

After the intermission, two pieces were played without a break: the prelude to Wagner's Tristan and Isolde and Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy.

I enjoyed all the pieces.  They were different but somehow the theme succeeded in pulling them all together.  It was the last piece that really sold me though.  First of all, the bio in the Playbill was fascinating.  During his life, he apparently developed a strong belief in mysticism, believed he could levitate, and once tried to walk across Lake Geneva.  The piece was not my favorite musically, but it was so interesting to watch that it made up for its musical shortcomings.  It wandered from lush to delicate, soft to loud.  It ended with a huge finale, and that's something that I totally love. Plus, it called for nine -- nine -- French horns!  I don't know where they found that many French horn players in St. Louis; my guess is that they had to import a few.  But it's a beautiful instrument, and was lovely to see on the stage.

After the show, we met up with S's cousin R for dinner at Grace Meat + Three.  It was about 6:00 on Sunday, and apparently there had been a big convention in town all weekend that had made the restaurant a favorite spot.  Consequently, they were sold out of a lot.  We ended up with a Grace burger and a beef po' boy, with sides of macaroni and cheese and bourbon-whipped sweet potatoes.  The po' boy was pretty good, the mac and cheese was decent, and the burger and sweet potatoes were just okay.

To top it all off, I was super excited to hear that they still had a few can's of Urban Chestnut's limited release: the Big Shark Lemon Radler!  I ordered it, only to find out that they had sold out a few minutes before.  On the whole, it was disappointing.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

There Are Rules About These Things

Yesterday, S and I were out enjoying some of the SLIFF movies, and we saw our first public Christmas decorations.  As much as I love Christmas, I agree with S that they should not be up until after Thanksgiving.  Here's how he feels about it:

Goals 2018 -- November Edition

We were gone for two weeks in October, so there are many changing-of-the-seasons things which did not get done.  Here's what I'd like to work on this month:
- Pulling dead plants from my garden
- Over-mulching for the winter
- Planting garlic
- The last grass cutting of the season (although perhaps I should save this one for K?)
- The annual closet clean-out
- Annual bike maintenance (really this should probably be monthly, but who has that kind of time?)

Goals 2018 -- October Recap

Looks like I get a freebie this month, since we haven't gotten our pictures yet.  I'll take it!

Happy Halloween!

Inspector Singh Investigates: A Deadly Cambodian Crime Spree -- Take 2

The nice thing about murder mysteries is that they're easy to read.  Sometimes a little too easy; I just want to get to the end even when I should be doing other things.  But books like that are nice sometimes, especially if you just need to give yourself a proverbial kick in the reading pants.

So it was with Inspector Singh.  Reasonably compelling, fairly well-written.  I was especially fond of some of the more European turns of phrase that were sprinkled throughout.  (The author - and the titular inspector - are from Singapore, which began its life as a British colony.)  It wasn't terribly surprising, but it was interesting enough to keep me reading.

Most importantly, it carried a flavor of the place -- that's what I was really looking for.  How accurate of a flavor it is, I can't say just yet.  But it certainly was a flavor.  And the good Inspector Singh's fondness for curry sure did make me hungry!

Tiny Grammar Rant

I know there are some sources that say that the use of apostrophes to make an acronym plural is acceptable.

Here's the simple thing about that: they're wrong.

And I would at least expect better from the library:

The Classic Bic

You may not have known this, but the classic black Bic pen has gotten a promotion.  It is now the "special ballot marking pen" for Missouri elections.

I'm sure it's a conspiracy on the part of one side or the other.

Pizza Tour: Peel Wood Fired Pizza

Peel Wood Fired Pizza, which has long had a location in Edwardsville, Illinois, recently opened a shop in Clayton.  I've been a few times, and have very much enjoyed it.  Here is a quick rundown of some of the predictable (and not so predictable) things I like about the Clayton location:

- The pizza is good: a California/Neapolitan style.  Also good is the goat cheese gratin (pizza in another form)
- Well-designed bathrooms, including floor-to-ceiling doors and trough sinks
- The bar is enormous
- Even when it's reasonably crowded, it's not super noisy (This is huge! When did it become the hip thing for restaurants to be noisy?  For whom is that enjoyable?)
- Their take-away pizza boxes are compostable

So, if you're around Clayton, or Edwardsville, or O'Fallon, give it a try.

Fritanga and Gateway Cup

One very hot Friday evening not too long ago, S and I had a wonderful St. Louis outing.  It started with dinner at Fritanga, a Nicaraguan restaurant down on Jefferson.

It was, as I mentioned, toasty.  Probably because I had been sitting in a freezing cold office building all day, though, for the short walk from the car to the restaurant, the temperature felt nice.  Consequently, I made the erroneous decision to sit outside.  And it wasn't actually so much the heat that was annoying, because we had cold drinks (a Nicarita for me, beer for S), but it was the mosquitoes.  Nevertheless, we very much enjoyed our food.  I went the app route -- chicharron de pollo and empanadas.  S had the canoa de maduro with pork, and we shared the queso frito.  One thing Nicaraguan food is not, at least when served in the US, is light.

We decided to make ourselves feel better about our unhealthy dinner choices by going to watch other people race bikes.  The heat was even worse standing out on the pavement of Lafayette Square, but at least every time the riders came around, we got a nice breeze.  And it's always a thrill to see a crit!

What I Watched -- Peter Rabbit

Every now and then, I stumble onto a movie that is so much more than I expected it to be.  Peter Rabbit was one of those movies.

S and I were having a chill night at home after a long day and we wanted something easy for entertainment.  S does much of the movie picking, usually because I'm futzing around in the kitchen, and he picked Peter Rabbit.

It is the traditional story, told in a mix of live action and computer animation.  In addition to being well done, it's funny.  And it's funny in that adult way that kids' movies are funny these days, like the inquiry made into whether "moving to France" really meant that someone had died.  Gotta love the Brits!

Bottom line: super cute.  You don't need kids around to have an excuse to watch it, but go ahead and use them as your excuse
if you need to.

Flora Borealis

When Mom was in town back in late July, we made plans to head to Flora Borealis down at Missouri Botanical Gardens.

The four of us -- mom, P, me, and S -- started out at O'Connell's Pub for dinner in advance of the walk through the park.  I hadn't been to O'Connell's in a while, and I don't think I had ever sat on the restaurant side of the establishment.  I'm not sure I want to be there again.

Worst of all, the service was terrible.  S eventually went to the bar to order our drinks because we couldn't find our server.  Second worst (only because if the drinks had been timely he probably wouldn't have minded so much), we were at one of the center tables, which are hobbit sized and S couldn't fit his knees underneath it!  He had to eat the whole meal awkwardly attempting to straddle one whole side of the table and leaning way forward in order to reach his food.  And yes, the server finally did show up so we could order food.  I got a burger (because I feel like you have to) and onion rings.  They were fine -- bar food -- but certainly nothing to write home about.  Maybe they were having an off day, but I'm not going to make a point to go back.

Then, on to the Gardens!  In a nutshell, my review of the show is mixed.

It started out with a very strange and preachy lecture about the fragility of the Earth directed at us through the voice of a nymph? elf lady? I'm not sure? via speakers placed around the rose garden.  I feel like everyone there already appreciates the gardens, and by extension, the Earth, and that was pretty unnecessary.  They did pump the whole rose garden full of some kine of (certainly environmentally-friendly) smoke, and had an overhead light show the whole time the nymph lady was talking.  That was sort of neat.

There were lots of sections of the sidewalk through the garden that were lighted in interesting ways, but not all that different than the Christmas show, except for the color choices.  The two coolest parts, I thought, were this one tree that they used as a backdrop for a light show, and Henry Shaw's house.  That show again had the elfin voiceover, but they did such a great job using the house as a projection screen that you could pretty easily ignore it.

So, it was neat.  There were some amazing light displays, but for $25 per head (and in keeping with the theme of the outing), I wouldn't make it a point to go back.

We did see this super cool truck in the parking lot, though.

Amos Lee

I have many, many long-overdue posts.  Apologies for the lack of timeliness (which also usually means my posts will be shorter and less descriptive, because my memory is not excellent), but I didn't want these things to go un-remarked-upon!

First, many thanks to K for taking me to see Amos Lee!  He was playing in St. Louis at Powell Symphony Hall the weekend after K's operas (here and here), so we had even more fun and culture packed into such a short time!

We tried to have dinner beforehand at The Dark Room, but we didn't have a reservation and they were all booked up.  Instead we went to Lucha for some Mexican apps and cocktails.  Tasty -- and they have pre-concert drink specials!

It started out as a solo show, with Amos demonstrating his humor, love of storytelling, and folksy music on stage all by himself.  After a bit of that, he was joined on stage by his bandmates, for a few more songs as a small group.  After intermission, they were also joined by dozens of musicians from the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra for a rockin' second half of the show!  I was especially impressed by his expansive vocal range.

SLSO has a link on their website to a Spotify playlist from the show, if you want to hear what we heard.  Thanks, K, for a great date!

What I'm Reading Now -- Inspector Singh Investigates: A Deadly Cambodian Crime Spree

I'm reading so many books right now!  I usually try to keep he number to two or fewer, but right now I am failing miserably at that.

There are many causes for my failure: a hectic schedule, the unpredictability of availability of ebooks from the library, and not wanting to tote around a paper copy of Truman (for two reasons -- it's huge, and it's not mine).

But I am still working on Truman (when I'm home or when the ebook is available), as well as Lands of Lost Borders (when the ebook is available), Devil's Mile (when the ebook is available), Ethics (and Other Liabilities) (when I'm awake in the middle of the night or I need a paperback that's portable), and now this new one, also in anticipation of our honeymoon.

As I mentioned in my post on Lands of Lost Borders, there is limited literature available about Cambodia.  Inspector Singh is one of the ones that I found, and my friend R was kind enough to get it for us off our registry.  So here I go, with some more preparatory reading!

Goals 2018 -- October Edition

I am famously terrible for not following through with post-event obligations.  Probably the one I'm worst at is pictures.  I always have grand plans about, for example, returning from vacation and reviewing my photographs, deleting the bad ones, sharing the good ones, etc.  That pretty much never happens, which is why my collection of digital (and printed) photographs is such a hot mess.

I'm not going to get through all my old pictures this month.  That's too much.  But to the extent that I receive pictures from the wedding, I want to make sure that they're curated, organized, and backed up.  There are going to be some good ones!

Goals 2018 -- September Recap

Apologies for my long absence.  It has been a very busy couple of weeks!  At the end of it, though, I am happy to report success for my September goal!

What I'm Reading Now -- Lands of Lost Borders

I picked up a habit from dad of trying to read a book about a place that I'm traveling to.  For those of you who don't know, S and I are heading to Cambodia for our honeymoon.  The trouble with books about Cambodia is that there aren't many.  And of the ones I've been able to find, they typically fall into one of two categories: (1) extremely dense history tomes that were probably PhD dissertations at one point in time, or (2) tales from the genocide.

Neither of those were what I was looking for.

Instead, I ventured a bit farther afield and decided to try Lands of Lost Borders.  We're way north of Cambodia, in the Tibet/Mongolia/China area of the world, but the tale seemed suitably adventurous, so we'll give it a go.

If you have any suggestions for Cambodia-related books that are not in either of the above categories, I'd love to hear about them!  I have two Cambodia-related books on the registry which, though fiction, hopefully give an entertaining taste of life: Holiday in Cambodia and A Deadly Cambodian Crime Spree (from the Detective Singh mystery series).  I did pick out one relatively dense-looking history book as well, Cambodia's Curse.  That may be my airplane reading for the trip over.

Goals 2018 -- September Edition

Well guys, it's here.  This month, I'm getting married!  I feel like that's all the goal I need for one month.  The end.

Goals 2018 -- August Recap

The month started off with a bang!

I got to spend a lovely weekend with my sisters and mom in Minneapolis!  This was in lieu of other wedding-related festivities, which I'm either too old for (ahem, bachelorette party) or find unnecessary (I'm looking at you, bridal shower).  That trip will be a separate post, so you can read all about our fun when I get around to posting it.

S and I worked a volunteer shift at the PGA.  I wouldn't call it fun, but it was certainly an experience.  That very hot and sweaty experience was tempered by a lovely evening birthday party for our friend M.

My friend L and her husband came in town for a weekend.  The Sunday they were here was PGA day, but we did get to spend Saturday with them.  We ate some tasty meats at Duke's BBQ Shack, then ventured off with the canoe and some floaties to enjoy a very still stretch of the Cuivre River.

We wanted to go hear a lecture about cryptocurrency at the Fed, but by the time I got around to trying to register, it was booked.  So instead we made our own date night, with pizza from Marco's and viewings of two documentaries about Bitcoin.  One of them was Banking on Bitcoin; I can't remember the title of the other one, but S will know.

We went to a charity happy hour at The Royale, where the more you drink, the more money the charity gets.  We were very helpful there!

One thing I didn't get to do a lot (or actually any) of this month was biking.  I was very busy on the weekends, doing a combination of helping S work on the camper, doing wedding stuff (including finally mailing our invitations), and moving to a new office location.  All that took quite a bit of time.  But, there's always September -- which is when cross season starts anyway!

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry -- Take 2

Let's not pretend that I understand astrophysics. I do not, even after having completed my read of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.  But it was terribly entertaining and also enlightening.

One of the things I so adore about Neil deGrasse Tyson is his totally unashamed amazement with all things astrophysical.  It would be easy for someone who is as knowledgeable and well-regarded as he is to become insufferably dull, but he manages to maintain his curiosity and sense of wonder at just how big it all is.  That makes him a joy to read, listen to, or see live and in person (if you're lucky!).

Back to the book.  It really doesn't have a plot.  Each chapter is a brief lesson in astrophysics, going more or less from the merely immense to the truly boundless.  The spaces and ideas are so big that it can be difficult to get your mind around them, but it sure is interesting to try.

The Language of Children

My friend L said something to me the other day in passing, which didn't catch my attention at the time.  We were having a very adult conversation about the pros and cons of bar shampoo (as opposed to liquid), and she commented that she and her husband tried bar shampoo because "the kids use a lot of shampoo, for potions and stuff."  Sure, they're kids.  Kids do that kind of thing.

But the next day, for some reason, the word "potion" came back to me.  As an adult, when was the last time (excepting your most recent Macbeth study group) that you used the word "potion" in regular speech?

I started thinking about it.  What about the word tattle?  How often do adults still do that to one another, even though we never use that taboo word anymore?  Monster, yucky, magic....  There are loads of nifty words that fall out of the lexicon as we age.  Which ones should we bring back?

Chicago!

I lived in Chicago for a few years, but I don't think that I appreciated at the time what a cool town it is. Now I relish the opportunity to go back every chance I get.  Imagine my delight when S expressed his concern that if waited until the first available Global Entry appointment in StL, he would not get his card in time for our trip.  His first idea was to take a mid-week day trip up to O'Hare (where appointments were immediately available), but instead we decided to set up a Friday appointment and spend the weekend in the city.  S spent lots of time planning our activities, so we jammed a lot of stuff into a short amount of time.

Once we cleared the interview process, we headed in to M&Ms new house in Ravenswood.  We dropped our things, chatted a bit, hopped on our bikes, and headed down to Revival Food Hall to try out a hot dog pop-up joint that S found there.  Duck Inn Dogs was the destination, and I had (of course) the The Original Chicago-style dog.  I say "of course," but I did give some serious thought to the cheese curds.  I would have gotten both, but we were only a couple of hours from dinner.  For his part, S had the K-Pop dog, and we each got a cocktail from the bar, although S ordered so he would have to tell you what the drinks were.  (Revival Food Hall, I learned, is a bit like a tiny and non-grocery version of Eataly in the Flatiron District, if that means anything to you -- and in looking for that link I also found out that there is an Eataly in Chicago.  Next time!)

After our delicious dogs, we headed back up north to catch up with M&M at the Square Roots Festival for some local beer.  The "admissions" people are way too aggressive, given that's it's a festival on a public street, and basically demand money from you.  Also, the ticket tent which promises "credit cards accepted" does not take credit cards.  But we did eventually get the beer, which was quite satisfying after all the trouble.

Dinner that evening was fetched my S and me from nearby Dante's Pizzeria -- big, NY-style slices, albeit a little cold by the time we got them back to the house and ate them.  But we washed them down with -- act surprised! -- even more delicious beer!  Then M and I engaged in some light crafting in an effort to create a construction barricade out of a sawhorse and some construction paper for their 3-year-old's birthday party the following morning.  It was entertaining, as was the el which runs through their backyard, and which S waved enthusiastically at every time it went by.

Our initial plan the following morning was yoga and beer (for charity!), but the tickets were sold out, so we stuck around and helped with party prep.  About the time the kids started arriving, though, we headed out, off to a great find of S's called Mortar & Pestle.  (We actually first went to Batter and Berries, but the line was ridiculously long and the interior of the restaurant was looooouuud.  So we picked a different place from the list he had put together, scooted over there on our bikes (which were basically our mode of transport for the weekend -- I love Chicago!) and got a great seat with no waiting, outside on a lovely side patio.  It did drizzle on us a bit at one point, and the waitress hurried out to see if she could move us to a table inside.  "No thanks," S politely said, informing her that the rain cooled things off a bit and was hardly reaching us anyway because of the trees overhead.  She admired our tenacity, delivered our breakfast cocktails (Bloody Mary for me, Old Fashioned for S), and left us to enjoy them.  And enjoy them we did!  Bloody Marys can be risky if it's a restaurant whose recipe you're not familiar with, but M&P nailed it.  Breakfast, which we split, was the decadent grilled cheese and the foie gras and eggs.

We perused the goods at Pastoral before heading off to the Southport Art Festival.  Though the skies looked ominous for most of the day on Saturday, aside from the brief drizzle at brunch, our time at the art festival was the only time it rained with any intention (which is not to be confused with intensity).  It was a fairly small festival, but about the right size to spend 45 minutes to an hour poking around.  By that time, I had caught up with L, and we made plans to meet at the zoo, where she had never been.

S and I beat her there (again, yay bikes!), so we spend a lovely 15 minutes or so gazing at the beautiful gardens in Lincoln Park.

We didn't have a lot of time to spend at the zoo because we also heard back from S's aunt, who was on her way up to meet us at Navy Pier (another place L had never been), and since she was on foot, it was going to be about an hour walk to get there.  We got to see (again) the lake shore from the bike path, and that in the summer is such a wonderful place to be.  Plus, I had enough time to snap a pic of one of the classic hotels in such an iconic spot:

Once we got to the pier, and on the advice of Aunt K, we pushed out past the crowds and stalls hawking cheap junk to the end of the pier, where you get the lovely lake breezes in your face and have a wonderful view back up the shoreline towards E-Town.  Our plan for that evening had been to hit up the Red Stars game, but by the time we realized that we needed to get moving, it was too late.  Instead, we grabbed early dinner at Al's Beef, followed by a worth-the-$10-but-not-much-more comedy show at the Under the Gun.

Second dinner that night was carry out pizza at Spacca Napoli, recommended by L.  The pizza was good, the quiet evening patio was good (although they were closing up as we were eating -- we barely got our order in before closing time), and the bike ride there on the largely deserted streets was lovely.  After that it was off to see L and J's new apartment (they are recent transplants from the NYC area), and then to bed.

Sunday morning breakfast was at Quiote in Logan Square.  We had planned to go to somewhere else, but L insisted that this place was delicious.  My pork belly chilaquiles speak to the truth of her statement.  It really should have been two meals, especially since I ate about a third of S's yogurt and granola and one of his Rajas tacos.  Okay, now that I think about it, it probably should have been three meals.  But we were getting ready to head home and I hated to let all that deliciousness go to waste.  Plus, we had done so much bike riding!  I'm sure I burned off all those calories, right?  Right?

Quote of the Day

"I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship."
  -- Louisa May Alcott

What I Watched -- The 40-Year-Old Virgin

My relationship with Steve Carell's comedy is similar to my relationship with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.  They don't sound particularly appetizing when I just think about them, but then as soon as I have one, I remember how good they are.  As with Steve Carell.  When I think about his acting, I think, "Eh.  He's okay, but I'm not a huge fan."  But when I look back at what I've seen of his, with the exception of Anchorman, I like it: The Big Short, Foxcatcher, The Office, Crazy Stupid Love, Little Miss Sunshine, and even Bruce Almighty. 

And, perhaps not surprisingly when I look at how much of his other stuff I liked, The 40-Year-Old Virgin.  His dopey, slow humor is perfect for the dopey, slow character.  When his co-workers at the electronics store discover that he's a virgin, they make it their mission to find him a woman.  The movie is drastically improved, in my mind, by the inclusion of Paul Rudd in the cast, whom I adore.

Fun fact: way back in the day, Steve Carell was in Curly Sue, but I don't remember his role in it, so I can't comment on whether I liked it or not.

Bottom line: goofy fun.

What I Watched -- Joe Dirt

A friend convinced me some time ago to watch Archer, swearing I would find it hilarious.  I did not.  Upon reflection, I concluded that I was entirely too sober to find it amusing, and I have not attempted it again since.

Luckily, I was not quite so sober when I watched Joe Dirt, which made it reasonably amusing.  The whole thing was probably helped by the fact that I find David Spade amusing, even if the film is stupid.

He plays Joe Dirt, white trash, but a nice guy.  He was abandoned by his parents as a child, and has spent the intervening decade and a half trying to find them, and get the story behind why they left him.

Bottom line: the movie is stupid.  It's frat boy humor at best.  But if you're in the mood for stupid, frat boy humor, it fills the bill.

Quote of the Day

"The two worst things we have in life are routine and fear -- the things that paralyze us."
  -- Francis Mallmann

What I'm Reading Now -- Ethics (and Other Liabilities): Trying to Live Right in an Amoral World

My copy of this book is a vintage one, collected from the bookshelves of Dad before he ventured off to Colorado.  He took a select few books, and left behind quite a library that I picked over.

Harry Stein was, for a time, a writer for Esquire.  This slim read is a collection of essays he wrote during his interlude there.

Goals 2018 -- August Edition

This is a silly goal, because you should do this every month, but I want to enjoy this month!  It's going to be full of pre-wedding craziness and work will be nuts, but it's also the end of summer.  I don't want it to pass me by!

Goals 2018 -- July Recap

Well, July was a bust mostly.  Invitations are in the works, but not here yet, so they certainly have not been addressed let alone mailed.  So, sorry if you're waiting for yours!

What I'm Reading Now -- Devil's Mile: The Rich, Gritty History of the Bowery

I really didn't have plans to read this book at the time I "picked it up."  I was trying to find a different ebook in my library app, which they didn't have, but I ran across Devil's Mile: The Rich, Gritty History of the Bowery.  I love NYC and its history, so it seemed like a good fit.  I downloaded it, and I'm off and running!

What I Watched -- Ex Machina

S indulged my paranoid and horrified-by-technology side and picked out Ex Machina to watch recently.  It's about a reclusive tech mogul named Nathan who has spent his time alone designing and perfecting AI machines -- not surprisingly designed to look like beautiful women.  Nathan brings Caleb, an unsuspecting employee, to his high-tech and extremely secluded home for reasons that aren't entirely clear to Caleb at the time he arrives.

Caleb comes to learn that he is there to play a part in a Turing Test.  Nathan has built extremely sophisticated artificial intelligence, which is in the form of a woman named Ava.  Nathan has tried to program Ava to think like a human. Things take a dark turn when Caleb and Nathan find themselves at odds, and Ava's role remains a bit unclear.

What was especially hilarious about our first attempt at viewing Ex Machina is that we watched the digital version, and at the height of the tension, there was an error in the file and the film froze.  Not kidding.

We waited for a while, hoping it would sort itself out.  When it didn't, I closed and reopened the file, skipping a bit past that point.  That didn't help either.  Then I started thinking that that was the ending -- just a weird, tripped out freeze frame that leaves you hanging, wondering what happened.

S did some research and it turned out that the freeze frame is not the ending, so we picked up a copy of the DVD from the library and finished it out that way.  The actual ending was frustrating in some ways, but also held extremely true to the whole theme of the film.

Bottom line: a highly disturbing film, both a great and horrifying experience.

What I Read -- Exit West

E's most recent postal book club selection was Exit West, by Moshin Hamid.  It is the story of Saeed and Nadia, a boyfriend and girlfriend drawn together by the hardship in their Middle Eastern homeland, including civil war and the death of Saeed's mother.  They secure passage to Mykonos as refugees, followed by the London suburbs, and then Marin County, California, adding to the young lovers the additional difficulty of leaving Saeed's widowed father behind, alone in the war zone.  Their relationship, predictably, suffers under the new stresses they face, and the different ways they respond to their changing environment.

I have not read any of Hamid's other books, but I might now; I very much enjoyed his writing style.  He gets to the point with well-drawn vignette, allowing them to tell the story rather than over-explaining.  His sharp "observations" (it is fiction, after all) convey the emotions of the characters to the reader without the need for further explanation, and that type of reservation in fiction writing is rare these days.

What I Watched -- Birthmarked and Too Late

Warning: neither of these movies were very good. Nevertheless, in the interest of hopefully saving each of you a couple of hours that you might not want to lose, but because they both have a tiny bit of value, I'll give you a blurb.

Too Late was an unusual movie, a collection of shorter stories that fit together like a puzzle, and it takes a little time to figure out how they fit together. So that's neat.  What's not so neat is that once they do all fit together, they make a really unsatisfying story.  Which is too bad, because I'm a big fan of John Hawkes.

Birthmarked's only saving grace was that it was sort of cute. It was a bit Wes Anderson-y in style, and in the quirkiness of the storyline.  But it was just not as good a as a WA movie. I didn't really like any of the characters that much, and I wasn't rooting for their weirdness to win over the skeptics. 

An American Soldier

K joined me for my final show of the year, which was the world premiere of the two-act version of An American Soldier.

The story was compelling and easy to follow, despite my initial concerns that it would be difficult to follow, in light of the multitude of time leaps.  It was also sad; a young soldier from New York joins the Army, and ends up committing suicide in Afghanistan after being hazed.

The music discordant, and I didn't care for it.  There were a few pieces that were okay, such as the Moon song.  I also enjoyed the addition of the Eastern "flutter" in a few spots.  On the whole, it was not my style, but it was ably performed.

For dinner before the show, K and I had spring rolls (rolled by K!; the Chinese component); borani kachalu (the Afghan component); and some local beer (the American component).  One of my more inspired menus, I thought, and all quite tasty.

Regina

The third opera of the season was Regina, one I knew very little about prior to the start of the show.  When there is a story I am unfamiliar with, I often deliberately avoid reading the synopsis in advance of the show.  I find that I am more engaged during the performance.

What a delight Regina was -- although in a depressing way.  It is based on the play Little Foxes, which I had never read, so I was able to maintain the surprise.  It's the story of three Southern siblings, each more greedy than the last.  In order to maintain the surprise for you, if you're not familiar with the play, I won't spoil the ending.

I will say, though, that there were some seriously powerful voices in the show, especially the women.  There were a few (I think intentionally) sharp notes which were a bit surprising, but not out of place.  All in all, it was a great show.

For our meal, which E and I had to eat at home because we were running a bit behind schedule, we had a mix of the plan (which included dill-pickled green beans and deviled eggs) and some regular breakfast foods.  We took our blueberry hand pies with us to eat during one of the intermissions.  (By the way, another thing I love are three-act operas!)

Goals 2018 -- July Edition

We've made it through the first half of the year.  And guess what happens in three months?  I'm getting married!  So my goal for July is to nail down some of the remaining details and get some invitations out the door -- or at least ready to go.  Look for yours in the mail!

Goals 2018 -- June Recap

My goal, as you may recall, was to find an alternative to iTunes, since my old computer (which is only still around for the purpose of preventing me from putting iTunes on my new computer) is kicking the bucket.

My first attempt at an iTunes alternative was Floola.  I had read some pretty positive reviews, and I especially liked that it is a portable program -- meaning that it lives on the iPod, rather than on the hard drive of the computer.

However, after messing with it a bit, I got frustrated by the seeming inability to identify the podcasts that were already on my iPod and to download the new episodes. So I ditched Floola.

I looked at several other options, including MusicBee, Sharepod, and Songbird.

Eventually I settled on to MediaMonkey.  It appears to be a bit more user-friendly, but it is a desktop application.  (There is a portable version available, but that's more for moving your music between various computers than it is for running on an iPod.)  So now I have software on my computer which I'm not thrilled about.  It seems to be a little bit easier to use, though I'm still struggling to update my podcasts.

I'll keep working on it, but MediaMonkey is the winner so far.

Quote of the Day

"Always do right!  This will gratify some people and astonish the rest."
 -- Mark Twain

Orfeo and Euridice

K and I went to see Orfeo and Euridice as my second show of the season, and it was another winner.  It is another classic story.  It's the tale of Orfeo, who must rescue his recently-deceased love Euridice from Hades.  There is one major caveat to his rescue mission: if he looks at her, she will die.  Again.  So that's not great -- and it gets worse when he breaks the rule and looks at her.  As predicted, she dies again.  Orfeo is so distraught that he is determined to kill himself rather than live without her.  It's a very Romeo and Juliet story -- until the god Amore resurrects them both, in an homage to the power of true love.  A twist happy ending!

The whole performance was well done, but the two things I liked best of all were the joyous ending and the dancing. Big Muddy Dance Company collaborated in the production of the show, rendering it a hybrid ballet-opera -- an unexpected combination which I quite enjoyed.

Oh, add a third thing that pleased me - all the leads were sung by women (including Orfeo). They killed it.

Before the show, we dined on a Greek-themes menu to accompany the show, including bleu-cheese-stuffed olives; watermelon, feta, and mint salad; pork kebabs (which had been de-kabob'd for packing purposes) with cucumber mint sauce; baklava; and Santorini Sunrise cocktails.  It was a lovely dinner in the much-needed air conditioning!

Happy Summer Solstice!

Today is the summer solstice (at least in the northern hemisphere). What a great opportunity to get outside and enjoy a bit of sunshine!

Happy Father's Day

Old TV is New Again

S has discovered a couple of old TV shows on Netflix that have been the source of much entertainment lately.  Most notably, we have been watching Cheers and Star Trek: The Next Generation.  I have been delighted by the humor and good clean fun provided by these classics.

Happy Birthday, K!

I'm a Ham

Here's a fun fact: S and I are now licensed ham radio operators!

Quote of the Day

"Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from."
 -- Terry Tempest Williams

La Traviata

S and I had a lovely night for the first opera of the season, La Traviata.  It is one of Grandpa's favorites and just happened to be on his birthday, so we had dinner with G&G before the show.

I've planned out themed menus for each opera this season, and hopefully I can see them through!  I tailored the menu for La Traviata down a bit due to time and travel constraints, but my Italian/French menu included roasted tomato and goat cheese quiche, roasted red pepper tapenade with crackers, and French 75s to drink.  Unfortunately my dessert plan went the way of the dodo because I had (unrelatedly) recently made a blueberry pie, which is always better for a crowd than left sitting on the kitchen counter, so that very American dessert threw off my theme, but I'm over it.

The show itself was lovely.  It's a classic, and what a fun first act, and the first half of the second act.  The remaining portion of the second act and the third act were expectedly depressing.  All-in-all, a classic, stand-up performance with strong voices carrying the lead characters.

Goals 2018 -- June Edition

It's summer in St. Louis!  Does that mean it's time for my semi-annual unpacking of a single box?  I suppose it does.

However, in light of my annual effort to improve myself (not that finally unpacking isn't an improvement), I will also finally make the full switch-over from my old laptop to my "new" one.

New is in quotation marks, because the new one is over a year old at this point.  The old one barely still works -- it has no battery life and must be plugged in, it struggles to run a web browser, it overheats, it mysteriously throws up the blue screen of death...you get the picture.  The only reason it's still hanging around is because I didn't want to put the big, clunky music software that is iTunes on my new computer.  I have been trying to keep my new one as bloatware-free as possible, and iTunes is famous for slowing down your whole system and being impossible to uninstall even if you've decided you don't want it anymore.

The nail in the coffin has finally come though -- the old laptop will still recognize my iPod when I plug it in, but it won't sync (which means I can't update my podcasts -- the horror!).

I've been looking for alternatives to iTunes.  I understand that none of them are going to be wonderfully quick, streamlined programs.  They do a lot and manage a lot of big files.  But I've found some ones that look promising, and at least appear to be easier to wipe from your computer if you decide to go a different route.

The other cause for the delay is that I want to clean up my music files before I dump them onto a new computer.  Right now there are a lot of duplicates, a lot of mis-named files, a lot of empty file folders from which the music files themselves have been long-since deleted...again, you get the picture.  If I'm going to take the step of bogging down my "new" system with all this junk, I might as well at least start from a place of organization, don't you think?

Goals 2018 -- May Recap

I set out to do some specific things in May. Here's how I did:

1. Ride my bike at least once each weekend.
I missed this one, but I have some good excuses.
-- The first weekend in May, S wasn't feeling great, so we took the weekend off.
-- Mother's Day weekend we did a 41-mile road ride.
-- The weekend of the big family party, S was out of town. Knowing that I had to get my ride in on Saturday morning, I got up early and got all dressed to go.  However, when I opened the door to go outside, I was confronted with a wall of pea soup fog. I live in a bit of a valley, so I drove up to the main road to see if the situation improved. It did not, and I didn't think it was safe to be out riding alone under those conditions,  so I put my bike on the trainer and watched some Netflix while I pedaled away to nowhere.
-- Memorial Day weekend, we drove to Clayton and parked there for reasons that will become apparent momentarily. We rode out to Kirkwood, down Grant's Trail, and back up to the Tower Grove Farmer's Market.  We were limited on our buying power because (1) our mode of transport was not excellent for fresh veg, and (2) we had forgotten to bring cash, so it was card only.  But we got a few things before heading back to Clayton - where we had delicious crepes as City Coffeehouse and Creperie to reward ourselves for our 32 miles of hard work.

2. Go to the Tower Grove Farmer's Market at least once.
Done! See above.

3. Go to the Lake Saint Louis Farmer's Market at least once.
Done! We drove there the weekend S wasn't feeling great.

4. Cook outside on the grill.
Done! S grilled up some steaks from the LSL Farmer's Market.

5. Go to the Whitaker Festival at Mobot once.
Done! We went with P on their opening night to see Gene Jackson, and it was lovely and not too hot.

6. Tend to my plants, which are finally enjoying some fresh air and sunshine.
Done! Mostly. There is definitely some weeding that needs to be done in the front, but overall things look pretty good!

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

What I Watched -- Multi-Movie Recap

I have watched so many movies that I haven't blogged about!  They've been a mix of genres and quality, so here's a quick recap of what I've missed.

Good Kids was a cute, sort-of funny film about four friends in the summer after they graduate from high school.  They were the nerds of their class, and can't stomach the idea of going off to college without having any of the life experiences they feel like they should have had by that age.  So they set out to have those experiences, to reasonably comical effect.











Kodachrome is entirely an all-too-predictable film about an estranged son's relationship with his dying father.  It's also an homage to the eponymous color film; the dying man is a photographer who is on a quest to get his last rolls of film to the sole remaining location in the U.S. which is developing the film.  The movie itself, as I said, is completely predictable.  It is worth watching to see a wonderful performance by Jason Sudeikis.








Spectral is what you should watch if you just want to see lots of shooting and explosions.  It's a sci-fi military tale, with a main character who is a DARPA scientist, and travels to eastern Europe to solve the mystery of the supernatural beings which keep killing American special ops fighters without leaving a trace.









 

Quiz Show had been on my list for a long time.  It's a fictionalization of a true story -- a Congressional staffer investigated television quiz shows when he believed they were fixed.  The film focuses on two contestants: Herb Stempel (John Turturro) and Charles van Doren (Ralph Fiennes).  Great performances by both of them.









Revolutionary Road is another one that had been on my list for a long time.  Unlike Quiz Show, this one was more depressing than satisfying.  Which is not to say that the acting wasn't impressive in this one as well -- both Leo and Kate (reunited after the Titanic went down!) do a nice job.  But it's just so hopeless.  Not fun.











Blue is the Warmest Color got so many great reviews, and I have to say that I was a little bit underwhelmed by it.  It was likable enough, for what it was, but it seemed like the only thing that really made it anything other than a run-of-the-mill coming-of-age love story was that it was about lesbians rather than a heterosexual couple.









The Last Five Years stars one of my favorites, Anna Kendrick.  Consider yourself warned before you start it, though: it's a musical.  It's a clever story-telling tactic though.  The plot moves backwards and forwards in time, while you piece together -- you guessed it -- the last five years.  Those years make up the length of the relationship between Cathy and Jamie, as Cathy's songs move backwards in time from the end of their relationship and Jamie's songs move forward from the beginning of it.