Posted by Eric
Tue, 21 Jan 2003 00:00:00 GMT
I spoke to my mother about growing tomatoes last night. Her advice:
Purchase the yummy-looking varieties, but also some early ones. The
growing season in Maine is all too short, and a September frost can
kill the late-bearing varieties. If this happens, you need to pick all
the green tomatoes and take them inside, where they'll turn red--but
never properly ripen. So if you want to be guaranteed that ripe tomato
taste, you should plant at least one variety which ripens early.
My mother, like every other New Englander I've asked, agrees that
tomatoes are the one plant worth growing at home.
In related news, Fedco
Seeds is running low on Orange Banana tomato seeds. I'll have to
order this week!
Tags Garden
Posted by Eric
Tue, 21 Jan 2003 00:00:00 GMT
When a CEO lays off thousands of workers and gives himself a $10
million dollar bonus (and a private jet), it's simply the free market
at work. When the government throws a single mother off welfare, it's
teaching her personal responsibility.
When the Federal government gives billions of our tax dollars to
large coporate farmers, it's a vital investment in agriculture. When a
state seizes private land to subsidize a sports stadium, it's a
savvy business deal.
The current leadership of the Republican Party is very anxious to
teach personal responsibility to the poor. But they understand that
free market can be a cruel place, so they're always willing (after
careful consideration) to provide a safety net for the rich.
Posted by Eric
Mon, 20 Jan 2003 00:00:00 GMT
Last night I cooked some spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. This
was a good dinner, but also a bit sad--I used the last of the tomato
sauce from this summer. This summer, we got most of our vegetables
from a local farmer, who arranged for someone to leave a big weekly
basket on our doorstep. As is typical in New England, we got
way too many fresh tomatoes, and decided to boil the surplus
into sauce.
But now it's the middle of January, the ground is buried under three
feet of snow, and we're out of tomatoes. Oh, sure, the grocery store
would happily sell us tomatoes from Mexico, or Europe. But those
tomatoes are bred for long-distance transport, not for flavor. Since
ripe tomatoes are too soft to ship--but unripe tomatoes are quite
sturdy--the multinational seed companies long ago bred tomatoes which
turn red without actually ripening. If your tomatoes are crunchy and
non-acidic, you're getting ripped off.
Fortunately, I've got a Fedco Seeds catalog with 50 varieties of
tomatoes. The most tempting is the "Orange Banana": I never would
have believed that the best tomato sauce comes from an orange tomato.
But the proof is in the eating and the Orange Banana was the clear
winner in our annual paste taste at the Shipmans... Its amazing
sprightly sweet flavor, reminiscent of Sungold but with more depth and
diverse tones, makes an ambrosial sauce by itself and adds a vivid
fruity complexity to any sauce with other tomato varieties. When
you're locked in the depths of winter,
this sort of catalog copy can be seductive.
Of course, I've never grown tomatoes before, so I might be getting a
bit out of my depth. Stay tuned to see how it all turns out.
Tags Garden
Posted by Eric
Mon, 20 Jan 2003 00:00:00 GMT
I'm still working on my employer's multimedia authoring system.
We've officially decided to port everything to wxWindows. As part of this
project, we're working with several people to improve wxWindows'
multimedia support.
wxWindows is a co-operative project. Much of the code is
contributed by companies using wxWindows to build commercial or
in-house applications.
Tags wxWidgets
Posted by Eric
Sun, 19 Jan 2003 00:00:00 GMT
Vermont is locked deep in the grasp of winter. This December, the
Conneticut River Valley received about three feet of snow (quite
remarkable in these days of global warming). The snow has reflected
sunlight back into space, causing the temperature to drop far below our
winter average. But this Saturday, the weather got seriously
cold.
The temperatures in Manchester (to the east) and Burlington (to the
west) didn't go much below -5F (-20C) on Saturday morning. But a cold
air mass lodged itself in the river valley, and those of us near
Lebanon saw morning temperatures below -20F (-30C). To give you some
idea how cold this is, my breath freezes to my beard at -5F. But at
-20F, my eyelashes froze together.
This was, of course, the same morning we planned to go snowshoeing
at 9am. The first half-hour of hiking was rather unpleasant, but after
that, we warmed up and began to sweat. The woods were beautiful.
Posted by Eric
Sun, 19 Jan 2003 00:00:00 GMT
In high school, I loved to ski. But for the past 8 or 9 years, I've
stayed away from the mountains, thanks to procrastination and cold
toes. Last Sunday, I tossed my skis in the car and drove 20 minutes to
the local mountain.
Skiing is like riding a bicycle; you don't forget. The turns, the
feel of the snow, even the dull rattling sound of the chairlifts--it
all comes back. The physical conditioning, unfortunately, takes a bit
longer. In the winter of 1994, I worked out 8 to 10 hours per week.
Today, I write software for a living and make it to the gym rarely. So
I have the skiing skills of an aggressive high school athlete, and the
body of an all-to-sedentary adult.
But as you get older, you learn a trick or two. One of the most
valuable tricks is to ease up on the brute force, and to use your
strength wisely. Everything's easier if you let the mountain do the
hard work. Don't jam your skis into the turns; adapt to the rhythm of
the mountain.
Today I made a small breakthrough in skiing the bumps. My skis are
198 centimeters long, with a very shallow sidecut--not an ideal mogul
ski in a world of 165 centimeter parabolic skis, which create
ridiculously tiny bumps. I've never been able to turn my skis in the
narrow grooves between the moguls. But today I tried going faster, and
learned that each bump would give me enough power to get my skis
airborne (clear of the groove), and turn them before hitting the next
bump. It's a tiny victory--I can't ski more than half a dozen bumps
before my legs start to burn, and I'm the merest novice--but it feels
like a dance with the mountain. This is why I pay too much for ski
tickets.
