The Wild Winds of Fortune

Me: Did you know that Torani makes bacon syrup? That seems just so… wrong.

The Not-So-Little-Drummer Boy: You live in the twenty-first century, Mom, If they don’t have bacon-flavored air fresheners by now, we’re not in the future.

[To Michael Morrill, in response to a Move-On.org email asking people to sign a petition calling on Congress to give up their “federally subsidized health care.”]

Dear Sir:

MEMBERS OF CONGRESS DO NOT GET FREE HEALTH CARE.  They are entitled to *purchase* the same healthcare that all federal employees get.  Check  Politifact.com (http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2011/aug/30/steve-southerland/southerland-says-his-health-insurance-no-different/) if you don’t believe me.

I am a progressive.  But you do not get a pass from me for spreading misinformation, unwittingly or not, simply because I believe in the same general political principles you do.

Every time you are shoddy with the facts, you damage our cause, because you damage our credibility. There are so many things to scream at Congress for (from being captive to special interests to completely callous and uncaring for the plight of many average Americans), don’t waste time — mine, yours, and ours as a movement and a nation — on statements that are easily disprovable. The truth is our best weapon against the status quo.

A fellow progressive,

Pat Greene

PS:  In case you are interested, I wrote a blog post on just this issue: http://madameverdi.blogspot.com/2011/09/fact-of-matter.html

What wine?

We do not have my (and Ted Allen’s) wine of choice to go with turkey, which would definitely be a Gewurtztraminer. We do have some other wines, though.  In fact, we have a fair amount of wine, which is part of the problem.

Most of the wines are medium-bodied to hearty reds, in accordance with the preferences of the members of the house who drink wine.  We have some white which is relatively but not too dry — but I am not a fan of most white wine and often use it for cooking instead of drinking.  When faced with a situation where white wine would be appropriate, I prefer a dry cider or perry.

I have yet to find a Chardonnay which I  like.

I suppose we could go out and buy a Gewurtz, but quite frankly I am hesitant to buy more wine when we have so much ready to be drunk up.

Edited to add: we have 32 bottles of various types and vintages (including a couple of nice Stag’s Leaps and a Sterling Merlot).  Among them is a relatively recent German Riesling which should do very nicely.

[Cross-posted to FB]

Thinking aloud, or maybe an informal poll: I am making or buying a pumpkin pie for those person(s) in my house who like pumpkin. I am making a key lime pie for those who like key lime. I am torn between making a chocolate sour cream pie or warm brownies with vanilla ice cream for those who don’t like either of those.

On the one hand, fridge space will be a a premium, and the pies need to be refrigerated.  On the other hand, pies are more traditional. Not to mention that if I make brownies on Tuesday, I will have to fight everyone in my family to keep them from being eaten up before Thursday. (Wednesday is for making cornbread for the stuffing as well as chopping and sauteing the veggies, cooking sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and the other pies (including roasting the pumpkin if I choose to go that route rather than buying one), as well as various and other sundry preparations.  Thanksgiving Day, we make the turkey and stuffing, the mashed potatoes and ambrosia, as well as finishing the sweet potato casserole.)

Yes, I know, we make an obscene amount of food, and all those desserts are good for no one in our family. But it’s traditional for us, and we eat off this for a week in some form (turkey and dressing sandwiches with cranberry sauce, yum). If anything needs to go, it’s the ambrosia, which is a pain to make and which can oxidize pretty quickly, and is the dish we are most likely to throw out some of.Definitely a first-world problem.

We are blessed with abundance.

Edited to add: Any suggestions for changes in either menu or staging to make all of this easier would be most appreciated.

The Rocket Scientist and I spent the weekend in Cambria, California, a quaint (as in the cutesy and somewhat overpriced sense) seaside town about 10 miles south of San Simeon.  And, for all of you who may be in that part of the country, some suggestions….

If you are driving from the Bay Area, unless the weather is God-awful, drive down Route 1 to get there.  It will take a couple more hours, but Big Sur has stunning scenery whereas Salinas does not.  We were lucky.  Although it looked overcast and gloomy when we had to make the decision to leave U.S. 101 to go over to Monterey, we gambled and it panned out: the weather cleared and the drive was movie-scenery gorgeous.  That’s not an exaggeration: if you see a car ad with people driving over a bridge with arched supports spanning a chasm next to a seaside cliff, you are almost certainly looking at Bixby Creek Bridge.

We stayed at the El Colibri Hotel in Cambria.  It was lovely: the room was beautiful, with a spa tub and a fireplace.  In fact, the gas fireplace was the heater for the room. The continental breakfasts were nothing much — you would be better off going into town to Linn’s Restaurant.

Cambria is a good jumping-off point for three very different activities.  Twenty miles north, Piedros Blancos lighthouse is the seasonal home for a large colony of elephant seals.  Elephant seals are impressive creatures, but since we had limited time (and I’ve seen elephant seals before, at Ana Nuevo north of Santa Cruz), we skipped them.  However, we did walk along the Moonstone Beach in Cambria:  any place there is beach access is well worth taking a stroll. 

On Saturday, we drove through the Paso Robles wine country. Think Napa, only less crowded. (Of course, I’ve never been to Napa in November.)  We did not visit all that many actual wineries, but driving around the spectacular rolling hills covered in the vineyards’ brilliant fall foliage to reach some of the more remote ones was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.

I have hit a problem here: how many times can one say “wonderful,” “beautiful,” “scenic,” “spectacular” or “amazing” and not be completely boring?

Reading the blurbs in the visitor’s guide, the Paso Robles wineries seem to produce mostly reds.  That was certainly true with the four we visited.  One of those was Kukkula, where we purchased another bottle of the Lagniappe (a zin, syrah, grenache and mourvedre blend). We also went to Eos, which had less impressive offerings, and came away with a dessert wine. On Sunday, we visited Lone Madrone (simply to try their Bristol’s apple cider, which is a must if you like complex, fruity yet dry ciders) and Barrel 27.  We visited the last pretty much based on their winery guide blurb being the most humorous, least pretentious description of any winery anywhere.  The lack of pretention was appropriate: Barrel 27 is located in a small office/commercial park.  It was clearly the winery, though, and not merely the tasting room:  you could see the wine barrels in the back.  Lack of pretention does not mean lack of quality: Barrel 27 also had what were probably my favorite wines: the Rock and a Hard Place Grenache, and especially the Bull by the Horns red blend.

The highlight of the trip came Saturday evening with the evening tour of San Simeon. I have been several times to Hearst Castle during the day: it’s pretty much a standard tourist experience; Disneyland without the rides. At night, however, and near the holidays….

For the night tour, people  in period costume wander through the estate, hanging out in the rooms chatting or playing billiards, interacting with the tour guides that come through. (The Rocket Scientist had the best description: “It’s a Depression-era Ren Faire.”) The buildings seem much more like what they were — a house, albeit an insanely extravagant one — and less like a oddly put together art museum.  The house was brilliantly lit up, and the Christmas decorations had been put in place in many of the rooms. (Our docent, dressed in 1930s suit, with period overcoat and hat, mentioned that the Christmas decorating had to start early since it took so long to finish all of it.)

Because of my mobility issues (over three hundred stairsteps were simply not going to be possible for me), we took the Handicapped Accessible tour.  On the one hand, we did not see the upper floors of the main house, which included Hearst’s suite, which is by all accounts fascinating. We also did not view the staggering outdoor pool. On the other hand, our tour had a grand total of five people: the Rocket Scientist, myself, and a young couple, one of who was on crutches (and then on a wheelchair) and our guide.  We were driven through the grounds from house to house on a small golf cart.  Best of all, we had a knowledgeable (in addition to being a professor of communications at Cal Poly, he had also written a master’s thesis on the relationship between Hearst and his architect, Julia Morgan) and chatty guide, and got more information (and certainly were better able to ask questions) than those on the thirty-person tours.

If you have never seen Hearst Castle, by all means go during the day.  You have more of a chance to see around the grounds, and as I said, viewing the outdoor pool should be pretty much mandatory.  If you have seen it already, take the night tour.

Sunday, we drove back through the Paso Robles wine country to 101.  The weather had turned bad, and while Big Sur is a delight in nice weather, the thought of driving it with sheets of rain hitting the windshield makes me faintly nauseous.

All in all, Cambria, the Central Coast, and Paso Robles get high marks all around.

…collapse when one has had simply too much wine.

I was going to spend a little time tonight (while the Rocket Scientist was involved with other business) running down a list of current cases before SCOTUS and why they interest me.  There are more than usual this term, and more that interest me that lie outside my normal narrow capital punishment/juvenile justice/takings or environmental cases from the 9th or 11th Circuits box than is usually the case.

However, I have killed at least half a bottle of Kukkula Lagniappe Red Wine (Paso Robles, 2008), which is rather strong for wine, being 16% alcohol. It’s quite tasty.

When you get vertigo just from sneezing, trying to use your critical thinking skills and coming up with anything even remotely coherent is probably a lost cause.

Edited to add:  Let me tell you, Kukkula Lagniappe (Paso Robles, 2008) is good wine, and not just because it is redolent of chocolate and cassis.  I killed over half a bottle by myself over the course of maybe two hours last night.  I woke up this morning after 4.5 hours of sleep, and I have no hangover.

Thankfully.

I had a wonderful drive down the California coast through Big Sur today with the Rocket Scientist.  The weather was cool, crisp and brilliantly sunny, with the late afternoon sky turning that gorgeous golden color that looks like it should be in a movie.  The sky held just enough clouds to create a beautiful sunset.

We are now in Cambria, California, which according to what I have heard was the model for the town of Pine Cove in several books by Christopher Moore, including Practical Demonkeeping. 

We’re going to be keeping our eyes open for anything suspicious.

I have mentioned once or twice that I am taking a class on Thursdays which revolves around mentally healthy habits for adults.  I missed last week, due to the cold (or whatever it was) from hell, and was reviewing last week’s work before class today.

Last week covered the concept of a “pleasant events schedule.”  That is, rather than letting good things arise organically from your experiences and surroundings, you actively plan in a certain amount of pleasant events every week, with a minimum of one a day.  Pleasant events ranged from “traveling abroad” to “recognizing you have done a good job” or “thinking how much more fortunate you are than others you may know.”

Looking down the list, I noticed that “throttling people in your life who oh-so-richly deserve it”* is not on there.  Pity.

A lot of other activities on the list have potentially significant downsides: flirting, eating, gambling, sex.  Why not a little premeditated homicide?

No, I have to remember that throttling people is wrong. Oh, wait, no, that’s judgmental.  I am supposed to avoid being judgmental.  I should instead say “throttling people is inconsistent with my core value which requires me to respect the sanctity of human life.”

But sometimes it is also very tempting.

*No, there is no one right this minute who is annoying me that much, but I just recognize the general principle.

I like you people too much to link to Cracked.com.  I recognize that you have lives, and that some of you are like me and possess too little self-discipline to refrain from clicking on articles such as “6 Badass Kids Who Ran Away From Home With a Vengeance,” thereby committing yourself to spending the next hour or more clicking from link to link.

However… their most recent Photoplasty contest, “If Error Messages Had a Sense of Humor,” was irresistible, mainly because #32 hits my situation not on the nail’s head but squarely in the solar plexus.

Um, yeah.

I have to leave this Starbucks. Firstbecause the wireless is down (I am writing this in Open Office,intending to post it later) but more so because…

Normally, this blog gets, oh, around 30 page views a day, according to my Blogger stats. Lately, that has increased to between 45-60 a day, as I have been writing more. (Of course, at least 50% – some days many more – of those hits are people Googling the words “children ardent for some desperate glory.” Many more are people Googling some variation on the words “little-known heroes.”) When I wrote the Steve Jobs, “Silence = Death,” and “Class Warfare” posts, I had several days where my page count approached 100.

Today my hit count exceeds 450.

I am astute enough to realize that it is unlikely that anything I have written would have resulted in this surge in activity. Not to mention that the three URLs which have accounted for the most traffic all redirect to the same nondescript content-empty site.

I think my blog URL is being used either to spoof something else, or as a way to generate false hits for someone’s web ads. Both of these bother me no end. The first because I don’t know what it would be used for, and if someone is going to all the trouble to hijack the blog, it must be something unsavory. The second because there is a reason I keep my content ad-free, and if anyone is going to be making money off what I write, it darn well better be me.

I an not net savvy enough to diagnose what is going on here. I am afraid it is something that will get the blog frozen.* If it continues past today, I am going to contact Blogger to see what they say.

In the meantime, I am taking steps to keep disaster at bay. I am backing up all my content on a mirror site that I have on WordPress. I have been thinking of moving over there for some time, and once I have the site looking the way I want it, I may well do so. (Of course, this site has been redesigned six or seven times in its history, so maybe I will simply call it a work-in-progress, and open it up. As it is, I still am teaching myself the basics of the WordPress system, and remembering the small amount of HTML I need to tweak the design.) I am also setting up an RSS feed for the other site so that I can port it over to LiveJournal, since I know readers who view it through the LJ RSS feed.

So keep tuned. I’ll let you know what happens.

*If it turns out that it is something that gets all my Google accounts frozen, I am royally screwed. I have four Gmail accounts: the one associated with this blog, the one in which I get important institutional news (emails to my doctors, the school, etc.) and various useful spam (e.g., Groupon and Amazon), a “professional” account (i.e., one with my actual name in the address) which I use for job-hunting and work-related correspondence, and a mostly dormant one associated with my jewelry and design work. (I have a non-Gmail account for corresponding with friends and family.) I also have quite a number of Google docs, mainly because it has proven to be a useful format for receiving and editing things from other people. I don’t use Google+ or Chrome, on the grounds that, with the above mentioned Gmail and docs and my search history, this multi-national already has far too much of my information already. (Paranoid I may be, but I do not put my trust in large companies. I am far too small a fish to ever come to anyone’s notice, but just the idea of people having access to that much information about me makes me a bit uncomfortable.) I stick to Facebook, and am careful about what information I release to my friends. (Although there, given FB’s history of a total lack of respect for people’s privacy, I may be putting too much out there as well.) Thank God for Livejournal.

In 2008, my work was featured as a full-color back ad for Beadwork magazine.

In 2010, the same work was featured in a full-color back cover ad for Bead Unique magazine.

I have just been notified that the same picture was a featured interior full-page full color ad in the 2011 November issue of Rock & Gem magazine.  Not back cover, but still not shabby.

I was looking through the Politifact website, and found a link to Poynter News University.

Poynter is dedicated to increasing journalistic excellence.  It was created by the people responsible for running the St. Petersburg Times, the best newspaper in the country.  When Nelson Poynter died, he founded the Modern Media Institute, and this organization controls the newspaper to this day.  The result is one of the only truly independent media outlets in the country.

The Poynter mission statement runs as follows:

The Poynter Institute is a school dedicated to teaching and inspiring journalists and media leaders. It promotes excellence and integrity in the practice of craft and in the practical leadership of successful businesses. It stands for a journalism that informs citizens and enlightens public discourse. It carries forward Nelson Poynter’s belief in the value of independent journalism in the public interest.

I can’t take courses at their campus — although, if I went, I would have a place to stay, as my mom still lives in St. Pete — but that is not all they offer.

They have an extensive library of low-cost (or in some cases free) self-directed courses and webinars.  These are mainly aimed at professional journalists, but they also have courses directed at new media journalists such as bloggers.  If nothing else, they have classes on writing and learning to revise your own work, which I know will be invaluable.

I took a look at one free class called “50 Tools for Writers.”  According to the description, it should take 1-2 hours.Yeah, right.  It takes that amount of time if you simply read the materials, but if you take the course seriously and do the exercises at the end of each chapter, it should take closer to twenty to twenty five.

With most classes in anything, the real learning comes in applying what you know.  I am hoping taking some of these classes will allow me to improve my writing.

I am not a journalist, nor am I likely to become one. I would love to make writing a career, though, and maybe this might be a first step to doing that. 

Maybe I’ll overcome my lack of self-confidence and actually finish my book.  That would be nice.  In the meantime, maybe you guys will reap the benefits of any newly found skills.