skywatch friday, week 11

"And they said, Go to, let us build a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name..."

[stanford, ca]

see more skies, both ordinary and spectacular, at skywatch

alias

I saw this on a couple of friends' blogs, and it looked like fun. And since I am somewhat frenetically trying to make up for a long dearth of verbal blog posts, it seems fitting to throw it into the mix now:

1. Rock Star name: Cleo* Marguerite** (first pet + current car)
2. Gangster name: Dulce de Leche Snickerdoodle (favorite ice cream + favorite cookie)***
3. Detective name: Green Golondrina (favorite color + favorite animal)
4. Soap Opera name: Ann Columbia (middle name + city where you were born)
5. Star Wars name: Davem (first 3 letters of your last name + first 2 letters of your first)
6. Superhero name: The Orange Tamarindo**** ("The" + 2nd favorite color + favorite drink)
7. Nascar name: Huck Rex (grandfathers' first names)
8. TV Weatherman name: Sheer Shanghai (5th grade teacher's last name + major city starting with the same letter)
9. Spy Name: Spring Daffodil (favorite season/holiday + favorite flower)
10. Cartoon Name: Blackberry Scarfie (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”)
9. Hippie name: Granola Bar Redwood (what you ate for breakfast + favorite tree)
10. Rock band name: The Wandering Blizzard ("The" + favorite hobby + favorite weather element)

*my neighbor's cat when I was little. I've never had any pets of my own.
**actually the Stanford shuttle bus, named after Leland Stanford's favorite horse
***in my opinion, this is seriously flawed gangster name methodology
****okay so maybe this is my second-favorite drink, but the orange hot chocolate just didn't have a very nice ring to it

farmers market bounty

It turns out that I live three blocks from the spot where the farmers market is held every Saturday morning. In Palo Alto, those three blocks translate into a mere five minutes from the time I walk out my front door until the time I am faced with the rather difficult but very pleasant task of deciding which variety of pluot to buy.



pasta primavera à la emily

simple and delicious. good in any season, best in late summer (i know primavera means spring, but it still sounds nice in the name.) feel free to experiment with variations.

1 clove garlic, chopped finely
½ red bell pepper, cut into short strips
1 or 2 small green chilies (mild or spicy), cut into strips
1 zucchini, sliced thinly
1 yellow summer squash, sliced thinly
1 green summer squash, sliced thinly
a couple of handfuls of grape tomatoes, cut in half
fresh basil leaves
cooked pasta, any variety (for this dish I like penne or farfalle)

Sauté garlic and peppers in good olive oil. Once peppers are softened, add zucchini and squash. These will cook very quickly if they are sliced very thinly; you need wait only a minute or so before adding the tomatoes. Along with the tomatoes, add several leaves of fresh basil, torn into smaller pieces, to the skillet. Cook until tomatoes are softened and heated through (another minute or two). Serve over freshly cooked pasta.

the internets and i

Remember when the internet wasn’t working, and then it was, and I was very happy about it? Well, the very next day it stopped working again. And I was very frustrated again. I couldn’t figure out why the internets were up against me, or, at least, why the cable coming out of my wall seemed to delight in devouring cable modems. Well, when technician number two came last Saturday, I found out that my predicament was not mine alone, but had rather been something of an epidemic. It turns out that Comcast’s recent software update had sent poor, unsuspecting modems all over the place into an irreparable state of shock. So, now I’m working with modem number three (four if you count the dsl modem that I sent back without ever using), which was made by a different manufacturer and seems to be getting along just fine with my cable and my wireless router, with my computer and, ultimately, with me. And I can go on with normal life, because we all know that normalcy is impossible without the internets.

skywatch friday, week 10

It's been a very busy, but very enjoyable week. Maybe I'll write about it once I sleep it off. Anyway my point is that this Skywatch Friday post comes a little later than usual, but at least it is still Friday where I live, so it counts.



[through a glass darkly. stanford, california]

skywatch friday, week 9

[stanford, ca]

watch the skies from your desktop - see more skywatch posts here

glory glory hallelujah

That's right, my friends, this blog post is coming to you direct from my new apartment.

At last, I can connect to the internets (yes, plural) at any hour of the day or night, from my sofa or from my kitchen table, heck probably even from the bathtub, if I weren't concerned about electrocution. Okay, so I haven't yet hooked up my wireless router (which is still tinged yellow from an incident with Claire's paint), so until then I'm pretty much limited to this spot on the floor where I'm sitting, or maybe on the edge of my bed if I arrange the cords just right.

I'll spare you the saga (I've told it to a couple of people and decided that it's not really as interesting as I had believed), but here are the highlights, by the numbers:

• two internet service providers
• three modems
• a dozen customer service reps
• two routings to an Illinois call center because the system got confused by my California address and my Utah phone number (Utah + California = Illinois?)
• one technician
• one bewildered, oft-frustrated, but after all happy internet customer

So, yes, I am delighted to finally have internet access in my home. Not to offend anyone with this post's title, however, I want to clear up any suspicions of sacrilege by noting that my having internet access now allows me to watch General Conference this weekend. I know, I know, the internet is not the only way that one can participate in Conference. However, (1) I do not own a tv, (2) I do not live within range of KBYU Radio, and (3) I don't really know where the Stake Center is (and I'd need the internet to look it up!) So. The technician just left about a half hour ago, so clearly I missed the live feed of today's Conference sessions. Fortunately, I can access the recordings with my brand new, shiny internet! So that's what I'm going to do now. Cheers.

skywatch friday, week 8

[stanford, ca]