The technical term for it is wine

Over the Thanksgiving holiday I made a little bit of hard cider. This is very easy to do: You just put yeast into a bottle of apple juice--having first made sure it contains no preservatives. Preservatives do their thing by stopping the growth of yeast, among other things.

I like my hard cider to be bubbly, so I do the fermentation in the original bottle with the cap on tight. One must remember to relieve the pressure fairly often so that the bottle does not explode though!

The first batch was going well, so when it was close to being done I started a second batch by pouring a little of the first batch into the new one.

I was relating all of this to a few of our younger guests (high school and college aged) and suggested that when this last apple batch finished, I planned to inoculate a bottle of white grape juice. It was purchased for a party, it didn't get drunk and our kids don't like it--so it seemed like a good way of getting rid of it.

"Wait"! One of the young guests said, "You can ferment grape juice"? He may have regretted the words before they were fully out of his mouth: Not due to me though. I am gentle on youth. I said something like, "Yeah, sure you can". rather than the title of this post. And yes, I did think of the mean answer before I replied.

Dahlia turned 10 on the 23rd but we had her party today

It was a bowling party in "mood lighting". Hence the psychedelic picture.

Where the office used to be

This spot is where our home office has been for the last 8 years. Now that we have a new office, posted about in the last week or two, the original is being pressed into family room service. Wasting no time, the Christmas tree is installed. This year a live one that we can plant outside after Christmas. My wife did all of the decorating with my one contribution being the addition of glass blocks to give a little more height.

A tale of two turkeys

We had 19 people over for Thanksgiving dinner, so I cooked two turkeys. One in the oven and one in the charcoal grill. They would have both fit into the oven side by side since I prefer birds that are in the 12-14 lb range, but variety is the very spice of life & all that.

The verdict: I pronounce you both guilty! Of being delicious, that is. They were different of course. The oven version, cooked mostly breast-side down @ 325 F. was very juicy and really as good as one could hope for. The grilled one I cooked breast-side up the whole way since the coolest part of the grill is the top and the breast requires the least heat. The meat was a little bit less moist than the oven one, but it was reasonably juicy and one can put extra gravy on it. The main difference was that it had a strong but pleasing smokey bouquet.

The verdict, based upon which one got eaten-up the most is that the oven one won. Deep down I know that really the grilled one is better, so like a climate "scientist", I'll just water-board the data a little and come with a new verdict: People are good and as such, they naturally wanted to eat up the less desirable turkey to leave the best for others. That's the ticket!

Joke from JAMES TARANTO's WSJ Best of the Web today

Q: How many climate scientists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: None. There's a consensus that it's going to change, so they've decided to keep us in the dark.

Thanksgiving

Here beginneth the chronicle of those memorable circumstances of the year 1620, as recorded by Nathaniel Morton, keeper of the records of Plymouth Colony, based on the account of William Bradford, sometime governor thereof: (via WSJ)

Being now passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before them in expectations, they had now no friends to welcome them, no inns to entertain or refresh them, no houses, or much less towns, to repair unto to seek for succour; and for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of the country know them to be sharp and violent, subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search unknown coasts.

Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wilde beasts and wilde men? and what multitudes of them there were, they then knew not: for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to Heaven) they could have but little solace or content in respect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all things stand in appearance with a weatherbeaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hew.

If they looked behind them, there was a mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar or gulph to separate them from all the civil parts of the world.

I plotted an aborted landing but ended-up flying right

One week after the marathon I injured myself. I don't think it was the marathon that did it either since I had run a couple of times after the race and was just fine. Rather, I think it was from running the day after straining myself with yard work. Go figure; a non-stop 26 mile race and I'm fine, but re-starting a recalcitrant lawn mower and I'm wrecked.

The injury spun out of control for a bit: My calf hurt so I favored landing on my heel--which then got a deep, deep blister. This caused me to compensate by thrusting forward with my good leg which caused it to get sore too.

I still ran, but slower. My experience is that injuries can take months to heal and if you stop training all that time you will be back to square one. So I ran, but I couldn't run very fast--till today. I actually set a PR for the below run. Not by much and with lots of pain still, but this is much better than pain + slowness.

Update: I paid for yesterday's exuberance: Today I ran a mere 4 miles at greater than 10 minutes per mile. I swear, some little old ladies with walkers zoomed past me but I can't be sure since it all happened so fast.

Behold, this fully-functional office space

There is actually more work to be done but the Rubicon has been crossed: My wife performed her first work-day in the room. There is no going back.

Dahlia is 10 today. Hurrah!

Finishing touches on the porch/study

There has been a self, and wife-imposed deadline on this multi-year project of turning a porch into a year-round office space.

All it really needs in order to become an office is for me to move the internet connection to the room and then put desk, chairs and computers in there. A while ago we thought it would be a good idea to have some built-in storage too and so we purchased a truck-load of Ikea stuff. The cabinets are not really required for office use but it would be a pain to do the work once all our work-things get put in. For almost a year all the Ikea boxes were stored here:

All of the boxes fit into the lower shelf on the left where there are two boxes remaining.

As one can see, they take up vastly less room in the boxes than when they are assembled.

If you can follow the cartoon instructions then the furniture looks good, functions well and is very solid. The problem I had was with missing parts. There were two missing parts in the first cabinet box, one of which was the instructions. I got fairly far before I realized that I was missing another part, so I opened up the 2nd box and eureka! It had directions and an obvious other part the first box lacked. I cannibalized from the 2nd to complete the first, and then from the 3rd to replace the missing part from the 2nd which had gone to the 1st & etc. In the end I think there were two sets of directions in 4 boxes and two missing hardware types. I checked with the Ikea site and in order to get replacement parts you need three things: The receipt (which we have thanks to a super-thorough wife), you have to go to an actual store (the closest one is an hour away) and it has to be 90 days from the time of purchase (it was about a year ago). I wouldn't have wanted to drive all that way when I could probably improvise something.

If you use your gray-matter, you can tell two things from the above picture: Which cabinet has the missing part and what the missing part is.

How could you know?

Obviously, the last wall unit will be the lower one since with this L shape, the logical place to start would be on the right side and then work your way left, with the lower left one in last. You can tell from the picture that there is more light coming from the low one. It would have been a darker one if I had used luan plywood instead of sheet-metal. The other missing part was the mounting brackets--I used hinges that I already had as a replacement.

All of this was 9 boxes: One for each wall unit and five boxes for the unit sitting on the floor (base, two sections, drawers, doors).

He keeps saying stupid things and yet people still listen to him.

The center of the earth is millions of degrees? He is only off by about three orders of magnatude, but what do I--a mere non Nobel prize-winner--know?

It is just the Byam and it is because of Gilmore

Other schools in our town allow Christmas themed gifts, so it is not as if this is some kind of rule from "on high". It is just the whim of the Byam principal, nothing more and is entirely typical of her ways. One incident in our daughter's class illustrates the point exactly: There was some rule against PG movies, but the teacher got permission slips from every child in the class' parents and still Gilmore nixed the movie when she found out about it! We have put three kids through that school and have a million stories of her blind adherence to rules and control-freakishness.

Situation normal: Running on an injury

I really lucked-out last year in that most of the time I had no injuries. This has lead to a false sense of security since most of the last eight years I have had one pain or another; usually the left Achilles tendon. It has been a good string: I've run 3 marathons, a 10k, a ten miler and a two mile race in roughly one year's time. Now things are getting back to normal in that one week after NYC I pulled-up lame.

The most common advice I get when I talk of injuries is that I should just quit running until I am healed. The problem with this is that it takes from six months to a year to heal and if I stop running all that time I will be back to square-one when I resume. So, I will do what I have been doing the last few years: Run, but not as hard; use lots of ice-packs and eat a lot of aspirin. Oh yes; and learn to accept that my calf is going to hurt when I run and most of the rest of the time too.

I've got to keep things in perspective: I don't have a life-threatening disease--just a bit of pain when I engage in a hobby (a hobbly?) that I don't even much care for.

Veteran's day off

My normal day off happened to coincide with Veteran's day, so the kids were off from school and we all had an outing around lunch time.

Most of the trees have lost all leaves, but sometimes you come across one that is a little tardy.

This natural area is called "Lime Quarry" but the only rocks I notice are made of granite.

Yeast Quest

Some years ago, back when we lived in Vermont, my next door neighbor brought home a truck-load of apples and owned a cider press. Since he had an essentially unlimited supply of apples, he made a deal with me: Press a gallon of juice for him and I could take a gallon for myself. That seemed overly generous, so what I would do is press two or three gallons for Joe and then fill a juice pitcher for myself.

Along the way I got the idea of trying to make cider. The unwashed apples should have plenty of native yeast on them and the acid of the juice would tend to suppress bacterial growth, so I figured that all I had to do was put the juice into an air-tight container and wait. What I used was a plastic juice bottle with a screw-on lid and I just let it sit in the garage until I noticed some swelling from internal pressure. I would loosen he lid gently to relieve most--but not all--of the pressure every day or two. I kept doing this until the fermentation slowed down to a crawl and then gently poured the cider into a fresh clean juice bottle, leaving all the sediment out. A couple more rackings and I put the cider into wine bottles and was done.

In the intervening years, my wife and I have gotten hooked on hard cider, especially the Woodchuck Draft Cider -- Granny Smith. The stuff is good, but it is pricey and so I have been of a mind to try my hand again at making cider. The only problem is that the cider you purchase in the grocery store is pasteurized, so if you don't add yeast it will just sit there. I began looking into yeast and there are no brew shops very close to where we live. I could order some on-line but I hate the idea of buying something for a buck and then paying five dollars for shipping, so things remained so until last Saturday.

We were up in Nashua a-clothes-shopping for the oldest girl and on the way to Old Navy, we went past a place that looked like a brew-shop. Not wanting to loiter in a clothes store, I dropped-off the wife & daughter and went back the half-mile to the brew shop. The shop turned out to not be quite what I expected: They were a place where you do brewing. You pay something like $200 and they supply all the equipment and supplies as well as help for their customers to brew beer. Then you come back in two weeks to bottle your 6 cases of 22oz beers. So they didn't offer to sell me any champagne yeast, but did give directions to a place about five miles further up the road. The directions were long and complex. While listening to them, I was thinking to myself, "There is no way I'm going to even try to find that place, I'll just bag-it till another time...". But I hadn't heard from the girls and the thought of standing around in a clothes store was daunting, so I set-out in the direction given and figured I could turn around if I got lost, or a call from my wife. The directions were perfect. The shop and the shop-keeper were perfectly charming. I got my yeast for 75 cents and even picked up a fancy 24 ounce beer 9.5% EtOH by volume for about 5 bucks.

I'd rather pay $5 for a fancy beer than for shipping. You can't drink shipping.

A day of gasoline powered things

Sunday was as pretty a day as one can expect in early November for New England. It must have been close to 60F and sunny. It was the perfect time to run over leaves with the mulching mower. I was about half way through my 2nd tank of gas and the mower had been getting increasingly sluggish, so I figured it was time to clean the air filter. Indeed, it turned out to be fully packed with leaf dust--I really wondered how it could have run at all with such clogging. The machine had other ideas: I put the clean filter back on and the mower would not start, or would start for a second and then quit. I checked the gas. I checked the oil. I cleaned the spark plug. I adjusted the carburetor. I got blisters on my hand from the pull-cord. Finally it began to run and ran like a champ til I was done: A tank and a half later.

After that, my wife wanted to run the leaf grinder--to deal with leaves in places I cannot mow, like flower beds. Given my bad experience with gasoline-powered devices, I approached starting the leaf shredder with dread. It got going on the first pull, not bad considering that it hadn't been used since last Fall.

Since I had reached the back of the garden shed I figured I may as well pre-position the snow blower to the front of the house. It too started right up and it still had old gas from last Winter in it.

Just for the sake of completeness, I should have seen if I could get the chainsaw running. It is a good thing I didn't think of this: If I got the saw running I would want to cut down a tree (lots of them need to be cut down) and this would have just created a lot of work for myself. It was already Sunday afternoon and I had the rain gutters to clean still.

At the weird exposure cafe

People who get it will know what I mean.

Marathon thoughts

This is the first bit of time I've had since the race to put-down some thoughts about the New York Marathon:

Getting to the start:

The marathon offers transportation to the start, but what they offered me was the Staten Island ferry at 5:30 AM. From where we stayed on Long Island, it would be easier to drive to the actual start than to the ferry terminal in lower Manhattan. The problem is that the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge closes at 7:00 AM on race-day and so you've got to be there early enough to get dropped-off and still have time for your ride to get back to the other side. In addition, we had never driven there before and were not sure how long it would take. As it was, we missed a turn and ended-up taking a longer way than we had originally mapped-out. The missed turn was due to the car needing gas and the first station we found just happened to be at the intersection we were supposed to turn at--we didn't notice the road sign because we were so intent on the lit-up Shell station instead. We crossed the bridge just after 6:00 AM and there was a drop-off lane right at the end of the bridge. We kissed good-bye and then I wandered into the athlete's village, wondering what I would do with 3 hours and 40 minutes till the race.

It was drizzling lightly and so I made for the first pavilion I could find. There were lots of people already there but I found a patch of grass to lay down on. Just about every body else had thought to bring an old sleeping bag or blanket but I was warmly dressed and so, while I would have loved to have a blanket, I was reasonably comfy. I tried to sleep and maybe did drowse for a bit, but also looked around and noticed the people around me. Next to me was a tiny Asian, or perhaps South American woman, sleeping in a thick warm sleeping bag. Later she woke-up and began munching on a rice-ball wrapped in sea weed--lending odds to the Asian hypothesis. Just on the other side of me were two young ladies spooning under a quilt--seemed as if everybody else did better pre-race planning than I did. In front of me was a group of Dutch guys who were full of pre-race bonhomie. One guy was putting his name label onto a black nylon bag. The race is very specific about requiring only the clear plastic bags they issue being dropped-off, so I wonder if the guy ended up with a big hassle later. Last, I struck-up a conversation with a French man who was very nice. He thought his English was lacking, but it was really very good--he had an accent but could be very easily understood. He was there with a group too and it came out that he is an engineer with four children.

Around 9:00 I decided to make a move: I wanted to find out where to drop off my warm-up clothes, find the starting pens and so forth. Almost as soon as I got to the center of the village, a female voice came on over the PA: "The starting corrals are open for the first wave, please report to your starting corral, now." I have italicised "now" but that does not come close to conveying the emphasis and command the announcer placed on the word. It was cold and once I turned-in my clothes, I would be wearing a tank top and skimpy shorts in that raw early morning weather and yet I felt compelled by that voice, to obey. I'm glad I did. I got to my starting area at around 9:10 and was going to stop outside to adjust my shoe but the guard at the gate said, "you'd better get in here, I'm going to close the gate in 5 minutes." He wasn't lying. The gates soon closed and they walked the whole first wave up to the starting line, a good quarter mile from where we assembled. They were probably assembling the 2nd wave in the pens behind us before the first wave began to race.

The Start:

The national anthem was sung, there were a few words from mayor Bloomberg and then we started to the sound of Frank Sinatra singing New York, New York (of course). The conditions were perfect: Low 50s, overcast and only a light breeze. With 3 waves and three parallel starts, there was hardly any crowding. I think I did around 8:15 for the first mile and a lot of that was going up-hill on the bridge. The view was great too: Helicopters overhead, fire boats down below-spraying into the sky and off to the left, the skyline of lower Manhattan. Once over the bridge, we were in Brooklyn and the first block sign I noticed was in the high 80's like maybe 86th street. We stayed on this same road until the blocks ran out, so over eighty blocks on one road! The street was lined the whole way 1-2 deep in some places and in others more like 6-8 deep. It seemed as if every block had a band or rock group playing. It was all very festive. I tried to maintain a quick pace, but was careful not to push too hard--the last thing I wanted was to burn-out around mile 15 like I did in Boston. (I did a reasonable time there but it was miserable for the final ten miles) In the early part of the race I took liquid at every opportunity and drank all that I was given. Experience has taught me that by late in the race you can only stand a little sip without inducing a gag reflex, so it is a good idea to bank fluids early.

We hit the half-way point just before leaving Brooklyn and I was doing 1:39:31 which put me about 5 and 1/2 minutes ahead of my goal of staying under 3:30 for the whole race. I felt pretty good: I had not yet started to breathe hard, my legs were starting to get sore and yet they felt strong still. When we crossed into Queens, it seemed pretty much like Brooklyn, at least the parts we had been through. Most of mile 16 is on the Queensboro Bridge crossing over to Manhattan. It was a weird experience. There had been cheering crowds the whole way and now we were on the lower level of the bridge and no spectators were allowed in that part. Just the sound of breathing and footfalls on concrete. As you get to the end of the bridge a distant roar can be heard--huge crowds in Manhattan! This was the best part. All three parallel starts had converged in the middle of Brooklyn and the course was crowded--not to the point where it slowed you down, but one needed to constantly pay attention to the runners around you. Now in Manhattan, the road was about twice as wide--three lanes in each direction plus a bus lane on each side. I had a whole traffic lane to myself and so I punched-up the pace a bit and did my last sub-8 miles of the race.

The crowds slowly petered-out as we got further and further North and when we crossed into The Bronx they were the thinnest of the whole course. Upon crossing back into Manhattan, the crowds resumed and became thicker as we moved South. We stayed on 5th Ave right past the North West corner of Central Park and ran along the East side until the Guggenheim came into view, then we turned in to the park itself. The park had some of the only real hills I remember from the race but there were only two miles to go so I didn't let that or the increasing pain in my legs get to me. The crowds in the park and the rest of the way were massive and noisy. We emerged on Central Park South and 5th Ave and went along the southern edge of the park to Columbus Circle, the finish is in the park about 800 meters away at this point. This final distance flew-by and I crossed the last sensor gate.

The Finish

They keep you on your feet after the finish. You pass by where they hand out finisher medals, then mylar sheets are handed out and someone comes by to tape them shut to form a cape. Next, goody bags with water and food in them and finally a long walk to the UPS truck with your bag of clothes, phone & etc. Each truck covered 1000 numbers, so the first one was for 69,000 to 69,999. I was in the 13 thousands and so had to walk to the 56th one in line. This was about a mile. The finish is about even with 67th street and I exited the park at 82nd. I walked back to Columbus Circle to meet my family.

A picture my middle daughter took when I met them at Columbus Circle. Lots of runners brought cameras along on the run with them. They probably got some nice shots but I would really get tired of keeping my camera with me for 3 and 1/2 hours.

Added note: I met a guy at the start and we had around 20 minutes to chat. His name is Dave, from NJ and said he is 42. It turns out that was enough information to find his time from the marathon results page. That is totally cool! It is nice to know he did good!

November Dahlia

We had a cold, wet Summer and this dahlia seemed as if it would never bloom.

It just kept getting taller and taller. That red stick which is supporting the stem is a broom handle. The total height of the plant has got to be around 6 and 1/2 feet.

The Japanese Maple behind the Dahlia shows how late in the season it is: This is November 5th and we live in a suburb of Boston.

NYC Marathon 5k splits

nyc 1st 5k 3.1 23:10:00 7:28:23

Slowed down by the climb up the height of the bridge and the crowds.

nyc 2nd 5k 3.1 22:46:00 7:20:39

Not tired and trying to make up some time. This would end up being the fastest split.

nyc 3rd 5k 3.1 23:45:00 7:39:41

Getting a little tired.

nyc 4th 5k 3.1 24:17:00 7:50:00

Getting more tired.

nyc 5th 5k 3.1 25:38:00 8:16:08

God. Will Queens never end?

nyc 6th 5k 3.1 24:39:00 7:57:06

Manhattan.

Crowds eight-deep, wide roads, yeah I had the energy to speed up a bit.

nyc 7th 5k 3.1 26:29:00 8:32:35

It gets old the further North you get, till the low point in the Bronx.

nyc 8th 5k 3.1 26:39:00 8:35:48

Can smell the finish. Too tired to actually speed-up but am able to not slow down as much as my body would prefer to.

3:28:41 is the final time. I should slack-off every time. I feel much better today than any other day after a marathon.