Best With Bacon

Kicked off Thanksgiving dinner with our Holiday go-to: warm Brussels sprouts salad. It’s a lot of hand-chopping, which is more consistent than a food processor. It would be raw vegan without the essential bacon, Parmesan, and sautéed shallots(!).Recipe.

Seeing Red

Filled my backpack with exactly what we need, and no more, for Thanksgiving dinner. For us, a small amount of cranberries goes a long way.

Simple Fix

Until today I’ve been putting up with a sharp, intense pain in my lower thumb, assuming it was arthritis. Today a physical therapist used her hands to apply a technique called positioned myofascial release to a muscle in my thumb, and the pain has gone. I’m amazed and grateful.

Angles

Spent a few minutes building a rig to evaluate a LEGO Mindstorms sensor that measures angles. Spent a few hours trying to read the angles from a computer program. Eventually a simple test suggested the sensor is defective. My next LEGO creation needs to “know” its joint angles.

Categorized as LEGO

Honoring Ordinary People

On my cycle ride: Sheridan Memorial Park. Surrounding plaques honor veterans of ten wars while reflecting on the futility of so much conflict. I appreciate how this memorial focuses on the ordinary people called to fight in wars, rather than leaders.

Earnest Young People

On a chilly day for cycling, warmed up with an Americano at a community table where earnest young people were chatting with each other or their laptops.

Obfuscation

Saved by the bell! Ran out of time in today’s “Phlebotomy as a third language” just before this slide. Next time, I’ll try to break this into manageable parts and rephrase: “…degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirements.” Not sure I’ll succeed.

Categorized as Teach

Cranking up the Thermostat

After a dusting of overnight snow and a chilly walk this morning, I was ready to crank up the thermostat and hunker down for the rest of the day.

Chopping Veggies

Chopped and prepared veggies for two dinners: cabbage and onion for a braise tonight, and roasted eggplant and zucchini for a veggie lasagne tomorrow night. One of the joys of travel, for me, is renewed appreciation for everyday home activities.

Categorized as Cook

KLM Delft Houses

It’s a joy to be traveling through Schiphol again. KLM hands these Delft houses, filled with Dutch gin, to passengers traveling B. There’s 102 different designs, some fetch over $500 on the secondary market. This evening, I’ll be sipping cheap wine in steerage en route to MSP.