Happy Holidays!

     And if you don't like the generic, one-size-fits-most version, well -- too bad.  I want to wish maximum cheer to the largest number of people, and it is my earnest wish that each and every one of you will take it in a way consistent with your own culture, beliefs and traditions, and not be a sourpuss about it.

     Life is too short to keep on Scrooging yourself.

Christmas Eve

     Here we are, Christmas Eve.  We got this far and that's something.

     I will not, this day, hector you about politics.  Not even the most positive developments of recent days are anything to celebrate, at least in my opinion; they are points we should never have reached, blots on the timeline that shame, guilt, character or the censure of wiser peers once would have prevented.

     So to hell with that.  You are only the boss of you and I am only the boss of me, and we should each proceed with hope and the firm intention to take the long view and do the right thing, rather than give way to dark fantasies of despair.  The year's longest night is behind us.  New hope is born and surely there are brighter days ahead.

InConJunction XXXV

     So we went to the 'con -- wandered into the huckster room five minutes early and got chased right back out, despite my reflexive mutter of, "...Press...."

     Withal, early arrival is still early five minutes later -- and not in the vanguard.

      The two photos are a sort of a blink test, and I doubt my phone camera runs fast enough to have got the second shot; that child was a blur -- a polite and pleasant blur -- in real life.

     Meanwhile, up at the registration desk, a very nice old cat, Sir William, was both summerized and summarized: Sir William, 13 years old, brought to the shelter when his owner moved in with her boyfriend.  He made eye contact with me and had much to say while enjoying the attentions of small children.

     The "lion cut" suits him, I think.  That puffball tail!

     There was a remarkably well-stocked bookseller (all new) at the back of the hall, and Indy's own The Starship Cat, with T-shirts and a wide array of used books (and et very c, from japonaiserie to all-composite tactikewt knives just like the CIA doesn't use) about half-way down.  (If you hunt obscure SF titles on Amazon and buy used, you may have bought from them).  The new-books guy had pre-release copies of Charles Stross's latest "Laundry Files" book, The Annihilation Score, which I could not pass up.  It appears that Baen has reissued the A. Bertram Chandler "John Grimes" novels in a set of fat paperbacks, too, which is at the top of my list; I picked the originals up catch-as-can and missed a few.*  The other item I had to buy on the spot was a collection of Terry Pratchett's short fiction -- there's another of his non-fiction I may purchase yet.

     Did not see Musical GoH Marian Call, but she had a table set up in the huckster's room with an Hermes portable typewriter at the center -- Instant poetry?  Lyrics on demand?  I dunno but trust a musician  to have chosen an excellent instrument.

     The pleasant and prolific Tim Zahn was set up right inside the door; he was a bit busy stringing up signs and making nice with fans.

     Didn't attend any fora; there were a couple of some interest to me but neither Tam nor I had eaten more than toast and coffee all day and my back/shoulder were starting to trouble me.  Headed home by way of Indy Tacos, which turns out to be straight-up good Mexican-ish fast food, tacos with a nice variety of fillings, burritos and the like, in a clean, no-frills setting.  They get rave reviews -- and with good reason.

     I do get stressed in social situations, especially in places and around people with which and with whom I am not familiar: I was in bed by seven and slept for thirteen and a half hours.
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* The series started out emulating C. S. Forester's "Horatio Hornblower" books but became very much his own thing.  Chandler was better-qualified to describe life aboard a starship than many SF writers: he was a merchant marine captain, mostly on Australian vessels. 

Happy New Year!

     Hap-pee New Year!  Hooray!  A fresh, brand-new year! I'm a-opening it up and a-divin' in...!

     ...Hey!  Waiddaminnit...  This year's already been opened.  Dog-gone it, it's probably done gone flat.  Who did this?

     (Indistinct words from Tam, offstage)

     What?

     Tam:  You did!  You came home last night half in the bag and opened up the New Year!  Right at midnight!

     Oh.

     I guess that's how it works, innit?

     Okay, then.  Happy 12-hour-old year!!!

Iron Horse Replaces Tin Bird?

  Pan Am -- remember Pan Am?  It's a railroad now.

Not Going Gentle Into The Good Night

     Or even the bad night.

     When my maternal grandmother -- schoolteacher, mother of five daughters, one son and a somewhat ADHD husband* -- was quite old and widowed, she became very outspoken.  A proper Victorian, she had raised her children to be modest in their public utterances, so her daughters were horrified.  They would chide her, "Mother, you can't talk like that!  Not at your age!"

     Her reply?  "At what age, then, will I be able to speak my mind?" 

     Y'know what?  We don't have forever.  Missed chances are often lost and never come again.  The old books and gadgets I like are fewer and more fragile with every passing year.  I am not going to wait until I'm silver-haired and frail, only to reap a harvest of regrets.

     Plus I'm just about certain the U.S. will suffer an economic collapse before I check out.  (I'm not cheering it on; I'd love to see us dodge it but bedarned if I know how).  Even if that doesn't happen, inflation has already turned what was a respectable amount of money in my youth into pocket change.  "Use it or lose it" has never been more true.

     So I'm writin' stories, even though it doesn't pay.  I blog about politics and whatever else I fancy.  I bought a motoscooter, broke my leg, learned to ride.  I'm piddling about -- whoops, pedaling about -- on pennyfarthings; I have learned to shoot, climbed sheer rock walls in the Grand Tetons, seen Niagara falls, bought a house, owned an MGB, stared at airships, flown a light plane and helped launch a digital revolution in your TV set.  I'm not gonna end up rocking on the porch, wrapped in a shawl, watching the kids zoom by in their jetpacks, wishing I'd Done Things back when I could.  If I've gotta buy lions secondhand, so be it, but I'll buy 'em if I want 'em just the same.
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* In the very best way: schoolteacher, coach, superintendent of schools, time-motion engineer, tireless one-on-one reformer of the reformable -- and he just loathed FDR, to whom he bore considerable resemblance.  I believe he came of age during Teddy Roosevelt's Presidency. TR had made an impression on him.  I never met the man and yet I miss him.

Seen Around Town

This one made me smile. 

Looks like a happy family, pets and all.  Be who you are -- and be proud!

Tam Paradise: Kincaid's. 

 

It's a classic.

And this house, which used to have a classic pastel-white/black molding paint job, very Deco Future. 
Current owners have gone a bit more South Beach but it's still a favorite.

     (My first post with the  forced switch to the "new" Blogger interface, which stinks.  Change is bad, Google.  It's evil.)

What's "Rich?" What's "Success?"

Is it a million dollars and ten million fans? That's one yardstick, but it isn't everyone's.

There's a musician whose work I like, kind of a folk singer and kind of not, a young woman who plays at least nine of every ten instruments in her recordings. A decade ago, she was working one of the low-paying, steady, skill-related jobs many musicians do, music director for a church or some such thing. One morning she looked around and thought, No. My head's full of music and if I don't start playing more of it, writing it down, recording it, I'm just going to explode!

So she quit. Started playing small venues.

...A half-dozen CDs later, a dozen rambling national tours appearing in slightly bigger places, to more and more people, living in a medium-sized apartment with a growing pile of instruments and computers, she reports:

"I'm taking home about what a Taco Bell worker makes -- but it feels like a lot more."

Sure, her gross is higher and so's her overhead; put that spreadsheet away. Part of her "income" is getting music from inside her head to inside yours. And to people who like it enough to pay for it.

I'm not sure you can put a cash value on that. I suspect a wage/hour expert would crunch the numbers and walk away, sadly shaking his or her head. On paper, the ROI isn't much.

But -- if you're doing what you want to do, not missing any meals, keeping the bills paid -- aren't you richer than the guy with the nice car, the big house and a high-paying high-pressure job he loathes? No matter how much he earns, he can't afford what you've got.

State Fair! State Fair!

State unfair. Not the event, mind you -- the circumstances.

Tam and I went to the Indiana State Fair yesterday. A hot, dry morning, it started out pretty well, though, alas, the heffalumps were on break. But we wandered through the tractors and nifty old-timey things from steam engines to button-hooks and a twivel. (I bought a cookbook with images of kerosene stoves every few pages; I had to go look 'em up. You can still buy them, though current production is smaller than the grand kitchen ranges of old. When I'm rich and build myself a 1920s/30s style camping trailer? Bookmarked!).

We enjoyed buffaloburgers and a "bloomin' potato" (marvelous!), I had some soft-serve and Tam desserted on a free sample of tasty fried catfish, stopped by the DNR building and saw huge, shy paddlefish (they'll come right to the edge of their pond but deftly demur when children reach in to pet them) and were about to round the curve to the midway when it spattered rain, then quit.

Off in the distance, we could see rain pouring over the edges of clouds like water running over an open palm -- but it was going away from us and the sun was peeping out overhead. Undaunted, we pressed on until my (rebuilt) knee lit up like pinball machine.

I started limping. It started to get dark. Tam was hoping to get to the Ferris wheel, I had serious doubts; she could see how gimped-up I was getting and agreed to retreat.

We planned to stop on the way back at the catfish booth but the skies suddenly-- Well, look here:This is from inside the FFA building, where I took refuge while Tam got her catfish dinner (I had a piece -- it was good). Poured down rain like that for twenty minutes, paused for a quick break, and started up again, only harder!

Snack et, we waited for what looked like another break in the deluge, ran off, and got soaked. Stopped at another shelter (literally, an open-sided picnic shelter across from the elephant riding area) for another especially heavy bout. By that point, I was laughing. My knee still hurt, I was soaked to the skin and I looked like a drowned rat. Tam was doing a little better thanks to her always-worn baseball cap (I'm fair but she's fairer; under conditions where I tan, she burns) but still soaked and we were starting to worry about our cameras and cell phones, too.

At the next slackening of the rain, we made a dash for the car and reached it just in time for the rain to pick up while I got the car unlocked. But at least there wasn't much traffic when we got underway!

--This was because most of the time, it was raining too hard to see the lines on the street. I cleverly decided to take Keystone north; it's a main road, well-lit, well-marked and well-drained, after all; it would be best.

Oh, yeah. "Best:"Did I mention the famous Fair Train rails cross Keystone? They do. The crossing signals and gates had malfunctioned. IMPD had a couple of officers there, who, after a half an hour and all manner of traffic idiocy, managed to get sufficiently co-ordinated with the train to open the gates. (I can't blame them for that; there are layers and layers of organization between a patrolman and the Transportation Museum conductor and engineer on the train). You can just about tell where the police car and overhead warning flasher are, a half-block-plus ahead. The street is firmly divided by a high median for the entire block: there's no turning back, though that didn't stop a 4WD pickup truck from so doing, cutting across a lane with barely enough room and clearing the concrete by inches.

--We made our way north, only to encounter even more traffic foolishness occasioned by a foot of water at the intersection of Keystone and Kessler Avenue. It came up over 4 or five blocks, so the hasty and foolhardy would peel out of the far left lane and squishing up the middle or right lane, throwing a huge rooster-tail, until they'd realize their car was starting to run funny from you know, an awash tailpipe or sopping-wet fanbelt, and then try to push back into the slightly higher left lane, leaving a nice wake as they did so. Waves were washing across the sidewalk -- and the curbs are very high in that spot.

Eventually, we cleared the intersection, made a quick shopping stop, returned to Roseholme Cottage and dried off, chilled and chatter-toothed. I was so worn out (from a five-hour adventure!) that I fell asleep shortly afterwards.

On the good news side, I'm pretty sure our drought is over.

PS: Next time, if the weather is bad, I wanna drive one of these:Oooooo, I gotcher "high water." I gotcher "uncrossable median." Yep. Right dang here: Minneapolis Moline, baby!

Monday, Paid Holiday

Sunday was Memorial Day; today's just the semi-official start of summer.
Tam points out that Monday actually was Memorial day; I didn't pay enough attention when I did my homework. This means I did my memorializing on the wrong day, too.

I goofed off: slept in, had a nice bath -- well, semi-nice, the tub at Roseholme is on the short and shallow side (I'd install a big clawfoot tub in the basement if I could figure out how to fit it in).

Then I Actually Got Some Things Done, like trim mowing with the weedwhacker, laundry and replacing the lamps and rectifier/regulator on my motorscooter (more work than you'd think, since the windscreen and top of the "headset" (instrument panel in the handlebars) have to come off to do the headlight and instrument lights -- I seem to have been shipped two less than I needed, so I left off the high beam and fuel gauge lamps -- and swapping out the regulator requires taking out the battery and removing a sturdy bracket, which mounts the starting solenoid and regulator. Installed the new battery strap (hooray! I've had to use little bungee cords instead for years) and a fancy chrome headlight surround for pretty. Also the old one was loose.

Took the scooter around the block and it was okay; ran by Locally Grown Gardens and found the shift linkage (looooong cables, this being a classic scooter: you twist the left grip to shift) felt a little stiff. But not too bad, so I made a run to Kroger for cat litter and other necessities. (Linkage loosened up but I may take the headset apart again and check things are properly arranged.)

Not too bad, though a guy turned in after me at the parking lot and squealed his brakes when I slowed more abruptly than he expected. --My fault, he wasn't signalling and I foolishly took him at his word. I have some relearning to do, all the habits and reflexes that improve the odds on two wheels in a four-wheel world; there are 2152 miles on the Chetak and this year accounts for about two of them.

Returned from the Market and started charcoal for a feast: burgers, roasted corn, salad, chocolate milk. Charbroiled burgers on toasted rye, with coarse Dijon, chili sauce and thin slices of tomato and onion: heaven! The roasted corn-on-the-cob (cleaned, buttered and grilled in its own dampened shuck) was ambrosia and an herb salad with plenty of carrots and red bell pepper capped it off. Ate too much and watched Bill Maher play true to type -- a horse's patoot -- in an old Max Headroom episode.

Not too bad for a day off, even if I did manage to get possibly a bit too much sun on my face: suncreened everywhere but, confident my facial moisturizer had an adequate SPF. It doesn't.

Shootin' Club!

It's official, Tam and I have joined up at Marion County Fish & Game!

They have made a number of improvements since last we shot bowling pins, like two (2!) brand-new bays with nice high berms and a (controlled-access) washroom you don't need a clubhouse key to get to.

(Snicker all you like - I considered the dire port-o-lets at Eagle Creek a huge negative, especially compared to IMPD's nice inside plumbing, off-limits to unbadged taxpayers).

Sadly, the fishing pond has shrunk, thanks to a nearby apartment complex: they made themselves a lovely catchment pond at a lower level and the two...equalized. I was never much for fishing -- childhood expeditions with Dad were an excuse to drink otherwise-forbidden coffee and annoy crawdads, who tended to annoy right back.

The best thing of all is that MCF&G has a nice schedule of activities -- and with Indiana's "guns locked in your car" law, I have half a chance of even getting to attend evening events.

Breakfast: Weekend

Yesterday it was brunch: a half-pound each of lean chorizo (Mexican) and lean, hot Italian sausage, cooked up with fresh shitake mushrooms, brown rice (fried in the spicy red grease, yum!), and chopped green onion, a carrot, poblano, Anaheim and yellow chili peppers, with three eggs scrambled in the center of it at the last minute (just push everything else to the side of the wok and let it cheer the process on) and topped with shredded cheese -- we had some "six-cheese Italian blend," which tamed the fire without putting it out.

The finished dish feeds, I was interested to discover, 3 or 4; with two, there is plenty left over. It needs no additional seasoning.


Today, I started with the last of the bacon, fried in black pepper, Mrs. Dash and a little garlic-sesame mix; when done, I poured off all but a dab of grease while retaining all the tiny crunchy bits, because the next step was a five-egg omelet, the eggs beaten with about a third of a teaspoon of curry powder, a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce and a tablespoon (+/-) of cold water. As soon as the bottom seemed set, I sprinkled it with a half-dozen well-diced giant chives and/or green onions Tam salvaged from kitchen-garden volunteers. It didn't want to fold (my flat griddle is at least 15" across and starting to get a bit bowed in the center) but I persevered and it all worked out. Very tasty!

-- I think curry powder, not used to excess, is the very thing for scrambled eggs. This dish is actually pretty; snip some fresh dill and shredded cheese on it and you've got the start of an attractive presentation.


These are vast feasts; five to six days a week, I have oatmeal and juice for breakfast. But you've got to indulge a little, or why even bother to wake up?

Lovecraft Action Shooting!

Shoot your way through the Cthulhu Mythos? Count me in. Proposed here by Elmo Iscariot, pointed to by the Atomic Nerds, who wrote, "This needs more eyeballs!"

It most certainly does. In several meanings of the phrase.

I wonder how much crossover you might get from the HPLHS gang? (A remarkable source of props, btw).

Zen Moment

Awake, more-or-less standing and coffee brewing,* I went to the front door to sniff firsthand this single-digit-temperature air the strange people inside my TV were so excited about.

Whoa. Brisk.

From the North, I heard a strange grinding, crunching sound. It was a bit like the icefall several days ago and it was moving closer, growing louder--

A single, small bright light speared the darkness, pursued by a tiny red light: someone on a bicycle zoomed by, crunching on the thin skin of ice in the (mostly) cleared center of the street in front of Roseholme, flashing into view under the streetlight and gone again, a silhouette in the predawn. An Ice Rider.

It's 4° F.

Godspeed.
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* Jamaican Blue Mountain. In the Chemex. Ooooo, my Mr. Valentine, he is So Fine!

Some State Fair Photos

The ringmaker with leg vise, mandrel, hammer and a box'o'nails:
Tiny tractor, with about 100 psi of steam up. It's even smaller than it looks, the steering wheel not quite a foot across:
Huge tractor -- internal combustion, transverse-mounted engine (there's nae sae much new under the sun!). Rear wheels are about six feet high!:
Better idea of scale:Notice the belts? They were doin' Actual Work; while my ring was being hammered round, a medium-sized traction engine was running a small sawmill, the fully-exposed blade over 3' in diameter and a powered "carriage" to run the tree being turned into planks through the blade! Not quite as dangerous as it sounds: take three men to run it, a "engineer" to shift gears and two to load the timber, and the operating positions keep you well away from the most dangerous parts. An inattentive fellow could still get himself luridly injured, so it's a good thing the crew was experienced.

Below, less than half of the field'o'tractors. Tam and I were quite taken with "Junior," at the center:
People talk about the need for public transportation in Indy. If they'd relegate the buses to long-haul and run these in a series of criss-crossing straight-line routes downtown, they'd be handy as can be. ...I suppose it's not slick enough for the complainers. Okay, it's no monorail, but by golly, it's distinctive. Cable cars, the El, a subway? Pfui! Our system would run...like a Deere! I don't know how they do it at your state fair but at ours, we've got the trolleys that share space with pedestrians. They run two slightly differing clockwise routes through the fairgrounds, sometimes inches away from people and booths, and without accidents. I'm pretty sure most of the guys driving them are farmers, possibly retired. Seventy-five cents gets you a seat and if you're silly enough to ride all the way around a few times, that's your lookout.

More photos later, including a few I'll reserve for Retrotechnologist!

State Fair!

I have scads of photos -- but I'll have to post them later. Giant tractors and baby donkeys! Baby tractors! (Kind of). And I have wildflower honey and a ring made out of a cut steel nail, the latter free for the asking.

Saw a wonderful array of old tools and prime movers, including one "modern" solution to the lack of a line shaft: a modified riding lawnmower!

I had a cake of beeswax. Dunno where it has got to, which could be bad. I sure couldn't find it in the car or my purse. Last memory? In my hand as I was getting ready to unlock the car. Did I leave it on the roof? If so, it didn't stick. A pity -- I have a big block of the stuff but I wanted a fresher, softer one.

Oh, and Red Gold tomato juice? Still the best! They serve it up ice-cold, with celery salt, Tabasco and/or Worcestershire to put in it if you'd like.

Firearms: The Unversal Measurement (Plus, A Find)

In a BBC article about the QWERTY keyboard* (and surprisingly accurate it is, too; good ol' Auntie), we encounter this paragraph:

In the USA in the post civil war era, standardisation became all. [...] A .22 bullet had to fit any .22 rifle in the world. A typist had to fit any typewriter.

[Emphasis mine] Yes, the UK, that place where aunties of every stripe have been trying to denormalize firearms for a loooong time. How's that workin', then?

Wonderfully enough -- how's this for "meta?" -- the article's inspired by brilliant comedian Stephen Fry's BBC Radio 4 series, Fry's English Delight; I went looking for more information -- c'mon, we're talking Stephen Fry here -- and the very first episode I found is all about the foolishness of trying to control language.

This sort of thing is not to everyone's taste; but if you like reading Henry Louis Mencken, if you liked James J. Kilpatrick's Court of Peeves, Crochets and Irks and The Writer's Art column and books, or if you enjoy This American Life,† you might want give it a listen.

PS: Eggcorns! Egad.
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* Slave to habit, I had originally typed "QUERTY." What? U always follows Q!
† "...[A] documentary show for people who normally hate documentaries. A public radio show for people who don't necessarily care for public radio." And for two seasons, the best thing Showtime ever made you pay to watch.

But Was He On A Horse?

Can you parody near-parody? Hey, even if it's commercial, it's worth a try:

Gun Show P.S.

...I would be remiss, not to mention uncharacteristically modest, if I failed to mention the gentleman who walked up to me at the gun show, asking, "Miss? Miss? Would you be Roberta X?"

Fingers crossed that he wasn't a process server, I admitted as much.

"I just wanted to tell you I'm a fan!"

Made my day, it did.

Whuttimmeizzit?

I got to sleep in, having a late shift this evening, and went from alseep to gathering chives and scallions in about as long as it takes to put on sandals and a robe.

...And from there, directly to the kitchen, do not stop, do not pass Go, do not collect e-to-the-x dollars....

Because the end result is corned beef hash, touched with a little Montreal Steak seasoning, laced with green onions and cooked up with eggs atop, sprinkled with fresh-snipped chives and just a haunt of cheese: breakfast as it should be et!

--

Noted In Passing, With Interest: prime suspect in the Times Square Idiot Bomb, a Pakistani-born U.S. citizen living in the Nutmeg State -- though he'd just come from a visit to (Our Good, Good Friends And Allies) Pakistan and was boarding a plane back there when nabbed. Fun as it is to gloat at the Gang-That-Couldn't-Shoot-Straight-ness of it all, I will quench it in order to point out that an ijit that wants to blow stuff up only needs to be lucky once to look like an evil mastermind.

On the other hand, much like the foiling of the Detroit Underpants Bomber, this is yet another example of J. Average Random Guy noticing something hinky and doing the right thing.

And on the other other hand, a string of even failed attempts has an effect on the aggregate mood of the citizenry; I just don't think it's quite the effect these fellows -- and the mullahs who maul their tiny minds -- are expecting. Y'keep on sowing the winds, sooner or later something gets spun up.