Our first farm share of the season arrived last week and in it was a small handful of organic asparagus. Last night the mister tossed the lot in a bowl with olive oil and salt and grilled them and it might have been the best asparagus I have ever eaten. We talked about that at the time, “is this the best asparagus we’ve ever eaten?”, which immediately prompted us to remember all the good and varied asparagus delights we ate in Belgium (during asparagus season! How lucky we were) and then we thought of the small shot-glass of chilled white asparagus soup we had during our first meal in Antwerp and it was settled. The grilled asparagus was the second-best asparagus we’d ever eaten.
Filed under eating, drinking | Comments (3)For a while now I’ve been thinking that the only sustainable way to breathe life into this space is to integrate content from my other online haunts. Bottom line? I am not now, nor have I ever really been a regular blogger. Lately, it’s been months (not weeks) between posts. At the same time, while I have considered ditching this blog altogether, I am not quite sure I’m ready to do that just yet. I’m sentimental that way.
So, I started thinking about doing a bit more “lifestreaming” in this space a few months ago, but never did anything about it, mostly for lack of time. To-day I started tooling around, looking for plugins & such, then the tooling turned into testing, and testing turned into a template refresh and a few hours later, we have this. If you’re reading this via RSS, pop over and have a look.
Four resources made it happen:
I like it. It feels right. Of course, now that I’ve dusted things off around here, the blogging impulse has returned somewhat (of course!). If things look funky in your browser, let me know? Thanks!
Filed under me, site stuff | Comments (4)To-day is February. I like February, it is a lightweight little month, a mere bump in the road on the way to March, and March is, you know, just a hair’s breath away from the promise of longer days and crocuses. Don’t mind me, this is how I deal with winter.
Speaking of winter, the mister gifted me a ski weekend for Christmas. For years I’ve been saying that I might enjoy winter more if I was into winter sports, and the mister, being a lover of winter and skiing and generally frigid temperatures, decided that aught nine ought to be the year I finally appreciate this season. I will probably go skiing for the first time ever this month. I will report back.
I have over 100 posts in these archives that are title-less. I went through a phase, some years ago, when I thought it was alright to not bother with post titles and I am now paying the price. Scroll down to 2004 on the archives page (slow load, sorry) and you will see what I mean. Let this be a usability lesson to you.
This is, perhaps, the most wonderful piece of hardware ever invented. I’ve sort of known it all along, but now I know it for A Fact.
I am currently in the process of mapping out and booking travel for the year. For now, definites include Darien CT, Memphis TN, Washington DC, Montreal, Charlottetown PEI, San Francisco CA, Monterey CA. Maybes include Amsterdam, Antwerp, Paris, and London. All in order of departure, not preference.
It was about the same time I abandoned this blog last year that I also abandoned Project 365. While blog neglect caused me much guilt, abandoning Project 365 resulted in nothing but relief. While I feel like I can be as mundane as I’d like in this space, I felt immense pressure to produce interesting content for Project 365 and my creative impulses don’t do well under pressure. I feel like I should say I’ll try it again some time in the future but I know that’s not likely.
And, speaking of images, this alternative way to view a Flickr photostream appeals to my love of minimal, bare essentials design. Just replace my username with yours (in the URL) to view your photostream thusly.
Filed under random | Comments (5)I was at a conference yesterday where I learned that Technorati defines an “inactive” blog as one that has not been updated in 120 days. That inconsequential nugget of information instantly made me wonder what 171 days of inactivity gets you. And then, all at once, an overwhelming feeling of guilt/failure washed over me as I realized that I was contributing to the deep pit of rotting blogs and forgotten intentions, and that jolted me out of my stupor quite nicely.
So, um, hi! You might remember me. I used to blog here.
I honestly don’t know what happened back there. I have about 16 posts in draft, started and abandoned sometime over the last 171 days, not one of them particularly interesting, just more of the same newsy, this-is-what-I’ve-been-up-to type of post. Once a post like that has been abandoned, it’s pretty damn difficult to pick up where you left of and forge ahead. So, let’s just think of the last 171 days as a collection of those abandoned moments, shall we? Good.
I’ve dusted things off around here just the tiniest little bit. I considered a redesign as some sort of symbolic relaunch (ha!), but it turns out that I’m still very fond of the simplicity of this layout, so I opted instead to upgrade the plumbing and make a couple of superficial adjustments (colour, font). For now, I’m pleased with it.
It’s nice to be back!
Filed under me, random | Comments (5)
