It was all good. The recipe worked out okay, I changed it slightly in that I added orange zest instead of nutmeg and then glazed with orange juice glaze. Also, will be getting a refund as always. Which is why it is odd that I hate doing my taxes. I don't mind refunds.
That is all fine & good, but the Vermont case is not as clear-cut as one might expect. Back in 2000, Vermont became the first in the nation to legislate civil unions. The Vermont legislature was (and probably is still) far to the left of the population of Vermont. And so they would have liked to have instituted civil unions/gay marriage long ago and they finally got the chance to do so when the Vermont Supreme court handed -down a ruling requiring either/or. The legislature happily obliged and then-Governor Howard Dean quietly signed the bill.
Even as the bill made civil unions exactly the same as marriage, except for the name, the bill was sold to the public as a way to prevent court-mandated gay marriage. Left unspoken is that it had always been possible to thwart the will of the court. Now, they are finishing the job they started back in 2000, undoubtedly selling it as a change in name only since civil unions had only been different in that one way.
It kind of reminds me of boiling lobsters: Start with the water cold, the pot heats so slowly that by the time the lobsters realize it is getting hot they are already cooked.
Okay, fine. Lemons, lemonade, whatever--I took the kids & dog to a play field to run around and try and fly a kite. After an hour of mixed success, I came to the conclusion that the wind is just slightly not strong enough to fly a kite in. That is; there was just enough wind to keep me trying, but not succeeding, for about an hour and a half.
Mother Nature, you are no lady.
On the way out I handed the officer (a different one from the one there when I came in) the receipt and he gave me back my pocket knife. I looked at it quizzically and asked, "Hey, wasn't this a Glock when I dropped it off"?
It got an amused smile.
Only later I realized that it is just the kind of thing that gets you trouble you were not expecting. But not this time!
All of a sudden I figured-out what it is that makes Segway riders look ridiculous:
It is the flapping of pant legs in the breeze.
Hat tip Lileks, via Twitter
Cinderella looked down at her feet. A hot tear ran down to the tip of her nose. She shook her head, no. The tear rolled off her nose and left a splattered mark on the floor. "Oh, and Cinderella- you missed a spot!" Stepmother said motioning to the spot on the floor.Her whole re-telling of the classic story is here.
The biosphere is the most complicated of all the things we humans have to deal with. The science of planetary ecology is still young and undeveloped. It is not surprising that honest and well-informed experts can disagree about facts. But beyond the disagreement about facts, there is another deeper disagreement about values. The disagreement about values may be described in an over-simplified way as a disagreement between naturalists and humanists. Naturalists believe that nature knows best. For them the highest value is to respect the natural order of things. Any gross human disruption of the natural environment is evil. Excessive burning of fossil fuels is evil. Changing nature’s desert, either the Sahara desert or the ocean desert, into a managed ecosystem where giraffes or tunafish may flourish, is likewise evil. Nature knows best, and anything we do to improve upon Nature will only bring trouble.The humanist ethic begins with the belief that humans are an essential part of nature. Through human minds the biosphere has acquired the capacity to steer its own evolution, and now we are in charge. Humans have the right and the duty to reconstruct nature so that humans and biosphere can both survive and prosper. For humanists, the highest value is harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. The greatest evils are poverty, underdevelopment, unemployment, disease and hunger, all the conditions that deprive people of opportunities and limit their freedoms. The humanist ethic accepts an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a small price to pay, if world-wide industrial development can alleviate the miseries of the poorer half of humanity. The humanist ethic accepts our responsibility to guide the evolution of the planet.
(All bolding mine)
From: A Many-Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe (Page Barbour Lectures) (Hardcover) by Freeman J. Dyson
Put me down on the humanist side of this debate. I should note that this kind of humanist is not the kind meant by religious folks when they find themselves opposed to "secular humanists". Rather the opposite; they would find themselves more likely on the humanist side of this humanist/naturist debate.
It was warmer than usual, so it was a good day to make a hydration plan: It turns out that you can over as well as under hydrate. So what you do is weigh yourself before and after a run to get a fix on your water usage. I lost 4 lbs over the course of 160 minutes, which means I should consume 8 oz of fluid every 20 minutes. This is not practical while running a marathon, but at least I don't have to worry about over-hydration.
This week I also got my marathon # and there is some way of using that to have progress texts sent to your phone. I am 9899--yeah! I just made it under the 5-digits. It turns out that your # directly corresponds to your qualifying position. Seems a bit Darwinian to me, but that is how they run it. It is a little daunting; my last marathon only had around 2,000 entrants, this one has about 10,000 people who are all faster than me! Yikes!
Update: I reviewed the numbers and there are 34 times as many entrants to the Boston Marathon who are faster than I am--as compared to the 288 people who beat me in the Bay State Marathon. There are more than 8-fold more fast runners than the total finishers from the Bay State! It is going to be a zoo.
He was in lots of stuff after playing Mr. Hand, but it was this role that stuck in my mind and I suspect, in the minds of people from my generation. Meanwhile, around the same time (1986) a man mostly known as an economist and author would play a small role as a teacher and it would launch his career in acting.
Update: According to the Oracle...
Ray Walston was in House Arrest (1996) with Ben Stein (I)
First she went shopping, then she made:
Reminds me of those old Geritol commercials. I think I'll keep her!
Today was supposed to be warm and it was pretty nice while the sun was out, but when the clouds came it became downright chilly. This is what happened when I made my turn at the 9 mile point. I didn't have the energy, or perhaps the will, to pick-up the pace to a level where I would be warm. So the rest of the run was more of an 'endure the unpleasantness of it' than 'push hard and make a good training of it' kind of thing.
At around the 18.5 mile point I even stopped and walked the rest. My time at that point was about 2:42, while the last couple of times I did it in 2:37 for the whole thing.
I will probably do the thing one more time before the Boston marathon and then begin to taper-off after that. It would be nice if the final run had a decent time as this would be a bit of a confidence-booster for me.
The 9-mile point is where I make a Right turn from Lowell Road onto Barretts Mill Road down at the South end of the map.
I should be able to get in a final burn by the April 30th deadline and hopefully that burn will consume all that is left from the ice storm.
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