Still steamy

Right near 100F again now: glad to be inside!
Boo and Skibo were away at sleepovers last night, and went swimming at a friends pool this morning, so LOML and I took the opportunity to drive to the big city (small-big city) forty minutes away.  Our chance to visit the granola-y and cheap-but-very-drinkable-wine-selling stores.  Tonight we're planning a cheese tasting, and we managed to get some nice red lentils for moroccan red lentil soup.  I've been wondering what to cook for Wednesday's July 4th party, and somehow I've become focused on a middle eastern theme.
Because nothing says American like tagine and couscous, right?

Yours, clearly culinarily confused,
N.

Summertime, and the living is sweaty

It's finally summer, and the weather is showing it.  It's only 9:30, and it's already 81 F, with a predicted high for today of 106 F.  That's about 41 C.  Ugh!  And the highs are supposed to be similar for the next couple of days as well --- not a good time to be going outside!

Yours, expecting to sweat,
N.

Descended from whom???

I know who my doctoral advisor was.  And of course, I know who his advisor was.  But for many years the chain had stopped there.  Then yesterday, my PhD student casually mentioned that I had some pretty famous people in my academic lineage: and sure enough, when I checked the mathematic genealogy database, the line had been filled in.  And yes, sure enough, there were some pretty stunning names in the list.

Yours, descended from Isaac.  Isaac Barrow.  Via Isaac Newton!
N.

Missed month

Ah.  I missed a month.  Completely.  And most of another.
Tant pis.

Yours, obviously having had little to share,
N.

Surprised to be on blog rolls

I was very surprised, this evening, to discover that I was still on the blog rolls of a couple of people --- lovely bloggers --- whose blogs I read, but whom I never expected to still be reading mine.  Especially since mine has shown recent signs of going dead!

Yours, grateful for the continued interest, and vowing to write more to justify it,
N.

Remiss in posting? How could I?

Just went to look at the blog, and realised that two of the most recent posts were titled "Remiss in posting". 

Damn.  I never realised that I was that predictable.

Damn.  And double damn.  How can I regain my sense of mystery?

Yours, just as you predicted,
N.

Moroccan cuisine

When I was out west late last year, I ate at a superb Moroccan restaurant: a good enough feast that I asked the waiter to tell me about the ingredients and the preparation (in hopes that he'd get the chef to come out to talk to me, but no such luck...)
Inspired, though, I came home and have cooked a few meals in this style since then.  LOML and I are running a cooking class in a couple of months on tagines and the like, and it's been fun making sure that I know what I'm talking about!
At some point in the near future, I'll post some recipes: once we decide on the menu for the class: at the moment it's looking like

• Chicken tagine with apricots and almonds
• Tomato, cucumber and onion salad
• Couscous

together with instructions on how to make ras el hanout, harissa, and some other nice things....

Yours, in culinary mode,
N.

Explorations

Since my mother had problems a few years ago, medical professionals now insist that it's a good thing for me to get screened, tested, scanned and probed.
So tomorrow I go to meet the appropriate doctor, and then we'll set a date for a fun, fun couple of days.  Fasting, and other medical prep work, to get me ready for a colonscopy.
I know that getting checked out is the right thing to do, but the double whammy of what they are going to do, and what the US insurance system will surgically extract, dollar-wise, are daunting.
Yours, wishing that one or the other could be easier:,
N.

Remiss in posting

It's been a while since I posted: we spent a lovely couple of weeks in the UK visiting Boo and Skibo's grandparents (some of which was somewhat internet-access-challenged), and once we came back home everything was full on.

And I'm not sure that I'm going to promise to get back to posting on a near-daily basis again any time soon: I did that for several years, and now am not sure I can do it again.  But I do hope to post more frequently than every five or six weeks, which is my recent track record!

Yours, apologizing to both of you who read this,
N.

Should I blame Delta or Virgin Australia?

I'm slightly peeved with an airline right now, and I'm not sure which airline I should be mad at.

I've never kept track of frequent flier miles before, because i've never come close to earning enough to get status.  But this year, with trips to India and Australia, that changed, and indeed, I made silver medallion status with the trip to Australia.

On coming back, I logged in to check my status, and discovered that Delta had not credited me with miles for the Sydney-LA leg of my trip.  I called, and was informed that it would be credited within 24 hours.

Three days later it was finally posted to my account, but they gave just 3700 miles credit for a 7500 mile flight.  Somewhat niggled by this, I phoned, and was assured that it was a computer glitch, and that all would be fixed within 24 hours.

Today, six days later, it was still showing the same discrepancy.  I phoned again, and this time was told that apparently Virgin Australia only gives half the mileage credit for cattle-class passengers.  I'm immediately pissed off at Virgin Aus for this, of course, but thinking back on it, I'm equally annoyed at Delta: they could choose to credit my Delta skymiles account with whatever they like!  I thought that I had booked a Delta ticket, and they have chosen to regard it otherwise.

Yours, gnashing my teeth.  About something that really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.  Grrrr.
N.

Much has happened in months

Much has happened in the time since I last posted.   A trip to Seattle, a trip to Australia.  And they say "pictures, or it didn't happen", so here's some photos.

Baby emus

 Kangaroos

Kookaburra

 There are more camels in Australia than people realise!

 More kangaroos

A wallaby, with a joey in the background

See, it did happen!

Yours, ready to travel again,

N.

Remiss in posting

I've been terribly remiss in posting since this summer.  Not sure why I've felt unable/unwilling to blog, but clearly the effect is that I haven't posted.

Life is good, in most ways.  I'm doing some travelling, and fretting about that (having to write talks for my visits to exotic places, for example) and finding that I'm now more nervous about flying than I used to be.

Next week, I visit Australia -- my first visit south of the equator --- it's been an interesting year for me, with India this spring, and now Oz.  And while I doubt that it will be as life-changing as India, I'm sure that the visit will be a great experience.  Now, I have to just figure out what talk to give, and write the darned thing.

Yours, back, for today,
N.

Palindromes and travel

A noteable date today: it is the same backwards as forwards, regardless of whether we write it in big-endian, little-endian, or the ridiculous US standard of middle-endian order.  (Think D/M/Y, Y/M/D, or the US M/D/Y).
This afternoon, I fly west to attend a conference, and to spread my wit and wisdom about math and computing.  I'm discovering how little I enjoy being away from home these days, although at the same time I do enjoy the travel itself in a way.  And there's a lot of travel coming up, including, if we can figure out how to pay for it, another trip to the UK for Christmas...  at least that one will be with LOML and the kids...

Yours, on the road again, or more precisely, in the air again, soon,
N.

Happy Birthday, Boo!

Nine years old!  Wow!

Yours, wishing a happy birthday to my lovely little girl,
N.

Happy Anniversary

To LOML,
Seven years on, a very happy anniversary to us both! Even if you are out of town on a course!

Yours, as you are mine,
N.

Boo, Poet

Boo, inspired while emptying the dishwasher, composed the following poem:

Bowls aplenty, bowls galore. Bowls are knocking at my door.
Bowls, bowls, all you see.  Bowls at university.

Yours, proud of my little verser,
N.

A quote from Boo

Boo and LOML and I were playing balderdash this evening, while Skibo was at cub scouts.  I've played the dictionary game many times, and assumed that this was just the commercialization of the same game: but it's not: it has categories, one of which is "it is illegal to:"

This led to Boo declaring that "I don't want to live in Fairbanks if it is illegal to sell a beer and a pickle!"  (The correct answer, by the way, is that it is illegal to sell an alcoholic beverage to a moose.)


Yours, still laughing,
N.

Not caught up at all...

Clearly, I'm not caught up.

Yours, missing almost a month...
N.

Catching up

Somehow, I missed blogging for a couple of days, and a couple of days became a week, and a week became two, and now it is twenty days.

I may fill in a few old posts for specific days, to remember what we did, etc.
But finally, there will be fairly big gaps in the blog, and perhaps I can no longer have to worry about missing a day.

Yours, back,
N.

Skibo's birthday, the school ediition

Skibo's birthday falls outside the regular school year, and so his teacher told us that we could celebrate is birthday at lunchtime sometime after the semester began.
We chose to go in today, so that both LOML and I could attend: we brought cookies (store bought), lemon bars (made by LOML)  and strawberries, just washed and hulled and sprinkled  with a very little sugar.
A lovely little gathering, and I think that Skibo enjoyed it.
I felt a little sorry for one girl, who was fasting for Ramadan, and had one more day to go before she could participate in such activities -- had we realised, we would probably have scheduled it for Thursday -- but I was tremendously impressed with how well she handled it: not a trace of sadness that she couldn't join in, just a strength of character that she could bring to bear.

This evening we went to our new favourite restaurant, the thai place downtown, and while the meal was delicious, we were rather put out that the service was dreadful.  And as this was the second time in three visits that the service had been awful, it may rapidly become our previously favourite restaurant.

Yours, happy with the day, except for the service,
N.