Sandwich Control

I am. I slept terribly last night. So, today I am a sleepy boy and a cranky boy. It seems that everything that I have seen or dealt with in any capacity today has added to my frustration. I can’t wait to go to the campus bookstore and see what kinds of horrible frustrations they are going to add to the mix. In fact, this is the second time I have had to type all of this because the other computer did not like the fact that I tried to open more than one window in Safari. I would have been using Firefox, but I could not find a version that was supported on OS 10.3.9. So, I opened a second window, no tabs allowed, and it locked up. So, now I am using the ever frustrating computer belonging to La Duchess. Her backspace doesn’t work properly.

Anyways, all of my frustrations aside, last night for dinner I made Risotto a la Milanese, some cut of steak that I do not recall the name of, and asparagus. Pancake Land and I watched the movie Gigantic as we ate. This Gigantic is not to be confused with Gigantic (The Tale of Two Johns) the documentary about They Might Be Giants. Sadly, it would be difficlut to get Pancake Land to watch the latter seeing as how she is not a lover of TMBG. Anywho, the former was bizarre and I enjoyed it. Well, I am off to try not to gun people down from a belltower. More soon. ~SC

So, I got out to the studio and discovered that Le Duke had almost filled the kiln. So, after of about five minutes of he and I rationalizing, we came to the conclusion that I really did not need to glaze anything today. Therefore, I could go home and not work today. Woohoo! So I have returned home and am debating on whether to go meet up with Little Peddler and G-Man at the river for some fishing or to lie around the house and watch movies, and maybe do some Chemistry homework much later in the afternoon. Perhaps I will just do nothing.

I got a really nice copy of The Joy of Cooking yesterday. Perhaps I will read a little of that and maybe cook something for me and Pancake Land for dinner. Dinner and movies on a rainy day. I like that.

I have a bunch of projects, as usual, that I am working on in my head. I am starting what I call a Notebook Cookbook. Which is just that. Well, not really. It is not a cookbook filled with recipes on how to make notebooks. It is a notebook of all of my favorite recipes and recipes that I have, not really invented, but, let’s say, made my own. It will also be a collection of my family’s recipes that are sort of staple foods at holiday gatherings. My Nanny’s Creamie Bars are to die for.

Another one of my projects is something that Pancake Land mentioned yesterday, but I have sort of been thinking about for a while, a photo series of strangers. Her idea, which I thought was excellent, was that I had to introduce myself to a stranger once a day, or once a week, and photograph them. It would be more than just a photo project, it would be a sort of get to know the people in your world and photograph them project.

I had the idea to do a project that got you, the reader, involved in the site as well. It would be a Rogue’s Gallery sort of thing, where you, if you so choose, take a self portrait of yourself and send it to me, and that way all of you devoted readers and commenters can see what each other looks like.

Another project, which some of you may remember, is one that Dave and I did years ago, and we have been wanting to revisit in digital format, called “Lampshades”. The premise is from the 80’s anti drunk driving ad campaign where a guy gets so drunk at a party that he walks out of the house wearing a lampshade on his head. The idea is that he is so drunk that he has no idea that he is wearing a lampshade on his head. The idea for the photo series came about when Dave and I were cleaning out a storage room in Lippincottonia and found like twenty something lampshades and instinctively put them on our heads. We developed the idea further and went out and shot it. I have only 35mm prints of the original series, but they are fantastic. Plus, the looks we got from people passing by were priceless.

Well, I am going to go try to get Pancake Land out of bed and try to figure out what we are going, or not going, to do today. More soon. ~SC

I want to send a special Happy Birthday out to Babbylon Tim. You all should wish him one as well.

Ernie says: "I thought he told you to wish that Tim fella a Happy Birthday."

Well, it’s Sunday and I am in Lippincottonia to go to work. There is work to be done and it is my job to get it done. So, I am at work. Lame. It’s cloudy and rainy and perfect sleepy time. I am so dumb.

August is almost over, so be watching for the Daily Photograph wrap-up and September’s page. It will probably be up tomorrow, but no promises. I am going to go continue day four of the Glazathon. More soon. ~SC

Happy Birthday Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaave. Happy Birthday to yoooooooooeeeeaaaaahhhhhuuu!

I just wanted to wish Dave a very Happy Birthday. You should wish him one as well. I heard from Taco Planet that he and Dave are trying to start a homo-erotically charged 80’s Electro-Pop band. The reason I say homo-erotically charged is because all 80’s Electro-Pop is filled with homo-eroticism. Especially when you add those two into the mix, er… as it were.

Today is Saturday and I am going to work. Pthptptptptpt. (sound of raspberry) I told Le Duke that I would come in and work today, but I told him I was going to take my sweet time coming in this morning. So I am. I just finished my coffee and, as a special treat for a handsome man, my donuts. And now I guess I should head that way. Hopefully I will get done in time to go to the river for some rest and relaxation, but we will have to see about that. Anyway, enough of this Chatty Cathy business. More soon. ~SC.

Well, I did not have time to post yesterday. And the complaints poured in. That did not upset me as much as not being able to wish Back Alley Trey a Happy Birthday. If you missed his birthday yesterday you should wish him one today, you jerks.

Happy Birthday B.A. Trey!

Anyways, I survived the first week of classes without too much brain damage. Overall, it won’t be too bad. Well, if you consider dragging yourself up a hillside of broken glass using only your face to propel you a good time, then it is not going to be too bad. I did not think that coming to work would ever be such a welcomed relief. Here, I know the score. I know what needs to be done and when and the chances of a pop quiz about the degrees of angles in molecules or the founding fathers of psychology is somewhere between a cowboy and Mother Teresa. Between Slim and nun. Ha ha ha ha. Oh, that one gets me every time.

So, I should probably get to work pretty soon, but before I go, I would like to point out the new layout of the post. Pancake Land and I were talking about my writing and she suggested that perhaps one gigantic paragraph might dissuade some people from reading the post because one giant paragraph is fairly intimidating and a bunch of smaller ones is not nearly as intimidating. I agree. Plus it makes the fact that have only written like eighteen sentences, most of which are fragments and run-ons, seem like so much more. We both win. You are not intimidated by my paragraphs and you think that I actually written something and get off my back about yesterday. Geez. More soon. ~SC

Yesterday kicked my butt. Having Chemistry II, Probabilty/Statistics, and Psychology back to back to back is crazy. Luckily I have a 4 hour break before I go to Nutrition. Also, yesterday we reached the 3,500 view mark. That means that since March people have looked at my website, in amused horror, 3,500 times. That is much crazier than my class schedule. Back to class stuff. Chem II will be be a lot of hard work, but I can manage it. Psych 101 is a cake walk. Plus, I’ve got the best Psych teacher, who came back out of retirement, at our University teaching the class. It is such a large class that there are actually two teachers. I find that weird, but who am I to say anything about the insane way the College is run. Prob/Stats is going to be interesting. I haven’t quite pinned down the feel of the class. I will be able to tell you for sure after we start lecturing tomorrow. As far as Nutrition goes, the only thing that is going to be difficult about that class is that it only meets once a week. So, the work load has to be done quickly or else I will fall behind. I discovered very quickly that I am possibly the only person taking Nutrition because I like food. I am not taking it so much to learn about food as to learn about the “Nutritionist” view on food. At first glance, it seems like they approach food as simply the building blocks of our body and that they take no joy in the act of eating. Perhaps, as a scientist, I can agree with that. Food provides the energy and nutrients for me to survive. If that were strictly the case we would all eat bran and leafy green vegetables at every meal. But, that is not the case. I happen to enjoy an occasional open-face chili burger. Well, enough of that. I could go on for hours. The title for Today’s post is taken directly from my Prob/Stats textbook. Yeah, it is terrible trying to read it, which my instructor insists that we do. Ugh. Well, I’m off to work. More soon. ~SC

The Dude has a posse.

Today is the first day of the new semester. Yeah. I will be making this relatively brief due to the fact that I have to find where my classes actually are. In the meantime, I am stressed out. The semester hasn’t even started and I am stressed out. Whenever I get this stressed it feels like I am floating in space and I am spinning slowly in one direction and the rest of the Universe is whizzing by in the opposite direction. At some point the levy breaks and I just stop caring about things. I like to think that whenever I get really stressed out the Dude takes over and I stop worrying. It’s nice. Well, wish me luck. I’m sure that you will hear all about it tomorrow. More soon. ~SC

I would like to start out today by wishing Le Duke a Happy Birthday. Everyone wish him a happy one today. So, today is the last day before school resumes. Well, technically it resumes today, but not for me. I’m a Tuesday/Thursday kinda guy. This semester anyway. I am just going to give a little warning that this semester is going to kick my butt, so if I fall behind a little bit in my posting, please forgive me. I have Chemistry II at 8:00am so, my normal morning posting might get scrunched those days. Anyways, I’ve got to run over to school to try and get a locker in the commuter’s lounge. Whenever I hear the term “commuter’s lounge” it makes me think that it is a place where drifters hang out. Anyway, more soon. ~SC

So, as you can tell, we are back from our adventure a little early. We came to the conclusion on our drive up to Devil’s Den that it was not the wisest or best idea for two out of shape people to hike 15 miles. Plus, once we arrived at the park, we discovered that all of the campsites were reserved. So, in order for us to camp we would have to hike 8.5 miles down the trail where we might or might not find a campsite. So, Pancake Land and I decided to hike the Yellow Rock Trail, which is only 3 miles, instead. The camp guide said it was very popular and relatively uncrowded, even on weekends. Perfect. So, we hiked it. It dawned on us afterword, that we recalled reading on the park’s website, that Yellow Rock trail’s difficulty level was “strenuous”. I think by the end we were glad that we did not choose to hike 15 miles and that we learned quite a bit about our needs and limitations as hikers in the process. when we got to the actual Yellow Rock we decided a better name for would be “Rock-Colored Rock”. When descended from the top of it we discovered why it was named Yellow Rock. You will see why when you look at the photos. Also, the noise of the nearby campers sort of put a damper on the whole being in nature thing. I had the brilliant idea to wear noise-cancelling headphones and listen to a “Nature Sounds” relaxation album on your MP3 player to get a more authentic effect.  After we hiked Yellow Rock Trail, we wandered around the Park for a while and climbed all over the dam. We left Devil’s Den and headed for Lake Fort Smith to have our dinner, which we had planned to have at our camp, after discovering that neither of us had been there since it was reopened. We arrived at the lake and found a nice shaded picnic area that was lake-side and I set up my stove. My stove was a gift from my friend Heidi (pronounced Hay-dee) the Judge. She lives in Finland, where she is a Judge. Not just a clever nickname. Anyway, the stove is this amazing old Finnish camp stove that is light weight and compact. Sadly, and with great shame, I have had the stove for almost 7 years and have never used it. So, I used it. And it rocks. It cooked a fairly large pot of soup in about ten minutes. It heated very evenly and did not burn the bottom. Amazing. Heidi, wherever you are, thanks again for this amazing gift! Anyways, we ate our dinner and washed up and sleepily made our way home. I have added the photographs I took while on this adventure as well as yesterday’s Daily Photographs. If you look to the right of this article, you will notice that there are new photograph pages. I took a lot of photographs yesterday. It took us a lot longer than the suggested 2 hours to hike the trail due to all of the photo taking (not due to the amount of resting that I had to do). “Hey P.L., let’s stop for a second so that I can take a few photographs of these dead leaves.” Right. Well, anyway, by the time we got home, we had forgotten the disappointment of not being able to camp and had decided that the trip was a great success. Well, as much as I would like to sit at this computer for a few more hours, I have stuff to do. More soon. ~SC.

First off, Happy Birthdays to Taco Planet and Operation B. Everyone wish them a Happy Birthday. So, Pancake Land and I have decided to go on an adventure into the wilderness. We decided yesterday that we are going to go hiking and camping this weekend. We wanted to do something before school starts back this coming week. We will be going to Devil’s Den State Park and will be hiking some, if not all, of the Butterfield Hiking Trail. It dawned on us about five minutes into planning this trip that neither of us have really hiked very much nor have we been hiking in a while. This should be exciting. We packed our bags full of supplies. Tried our packs on and then unpacked them, ridding ourselves of a bunch of unnecessary items and them repacked our bags. My pack weighs a little less than 30 pounds. (As a good scientist, I really need to start using the metric system.) So, in saying all of this, do not expect a post in the morning because I will be in the woods. Isn’t this all very exciting? I think so. Perhaps it is the imminent sense of catastrophe that makes it so exciting. Well, wish us luck. I have to go make the final preparations for this adventure. More soon. ~SC