Category: blahblah

Today Siren’s Echo performed at my campus. I was surprised by both the quality of the music and the great emceeing. I’ve not paid any attention to Portland’s hip-hop scene, assuming that it wouldn’t be much. Foolish, yes.

This was a great show and a great break from work. The band combined a great jazz guitar and funk bass and beats with really quick lyrics. I wasn’t able to understand much of the subject, but the delivery was awesome, and they performed very well considering the stage: a fully lit cafeteria.

Fondue always gets painted as a fad. I’m not sure why though, because there’s nothing transient about bread and cheese. I love fondue, and its something my family did with some frequency growing up, and Michelle and I continue to enjoy it.

There’s the cheese kind, which is my favorite. I especially like Rhinelander’s cheese of all the pre-made. Its made locally (I believe). My mom used to try and make the cheese from scratch, and it never turned out quite as well.

We’ve also experimented with the hot oil type of fondue, where you dip pieces of raw meat in boiling oil to cook it, then dip it in the sauce of your choice. We’ve only done that once, and once was enough. Open flame in your living room is one thing; boiling oil is another.

And to placate the non-cheese lovers, there’s always chocolate. Its decent, but I’ve usually spent my effort and stomach room on cheese and bread. I just don’t get as excited about the chocolate. Some people get too excited:

I’m working on a map of Bermuda because that’s where we’re going to go when Michelle graduates. In the meantime, I’ll have to use this one:

I started drooling as soon as I read the words Powershot s500. Sadly, my camera still works great, and I cannot justify slowing down my computer even more with 5megapixel images. But the thought of a Coach Giftset!

Happy Birthday Andrew Fletcher!

I highly recommend the film Scratch. I recommend it especially to those who like hip-hop, but I think everyone would enjoy it. Even Michelle thought it was good.

Last night we caught Touching the Void at Cinema 21 with Michelle’s co-worker and her her fiance. The movie was spectacular. Although a lot of the climbing seemed to be filmed in the alps, both the cinematography both of the climbing and of the mountains was stunning.

There were some incredible shots of the clouds blowing up and over the peaks, folding and separating around the various precipices, and combining again after the curl. And who could ever get tired of looking at granite? Really, its beautiful.

Oh, the movie is about a climbing trip that went horribly wrong, and the story about surviving it. Its not for weak stomachs. Each person was horribly sunburnt and injured.

OK chemistry head(s), here’s a problem. A correct answer will result in a free beer, plus the benefit that the secret will reveal.

Let us say we want to make a 3.5% solution from common (unscented) household bleach. We only need a small volume, say 200mL. What is the appropriate mixture of bleach and water to get this solution?

I’ve registered to take the GRE and will be applying to Portland State University and the Geography Master’s program. It may take while though, since I’ll continue to work full time. Now to solicit letters of recommendation.

And I think we’re decided on what to do after Michelle graduates. She deserves something fun.

Several years ago I took an online test to see which faith best matched my outlook on religion, spirituality and the divine. I took a snapshot of the results, and stumbled upon them yesterday. Out of curiosity, I checked to see if the site was still there, and if anything had changed. Well, very little had changed in 6 years, but the number 1 match now seems to be liberal quaker. A quick look at what defines liberal quaker is like a brief look at a list of unfinished projects. Its all kind of wishy-washy, but in a non-condemning, non-excluding kind of way.

Although the quaker oats guy is a slightly misconceived notion, I thought it would be funny to celebrate my new found religion of circumstance with a photoshop. What didn’t change were the 3 religions that least fit my results. In decreasing order of match: Orthodox Judaism, Eastern Orthodox, and Roman Catholic. No surprises there.