{ dubovsky.com rantings }

To folks who are wondering if I’ve dropped off the face of the earth, a quick note:

Sorry for the lack of interesting updates, but a few things have gone down in the past couple months that have kept me from keeping in touch. My company is closing down our office and moving the product elsewhere, so we’ve all been doing two jobs (our normal schedule work and trying to get everything transitioned to the new development team). Add in little things like doctor’s visits, a water heater cracking open, and some travel for work, and you have one busy and tired me.

It looks like things aren’t going to calm down here until Thanksgiving week, so until then: be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

(Click through the last image to see it in a bigger size, in which I think it looks considerably better.)

This project would have fizzled at several points had Diann not been there to teach and encourage. (I can be stubborn on rare occasions.) The interior is recycled graph paper and the exterior is wallpaper from an old sample book. It was great fun and will be used as my next work notebook; one wonderful feature of this type of binding (and why Diann suggested it, despite 30-odd tiny knots) is that it lays flat when opened. Highly recommended if you have someone to teach you the stitch!

I made a freezer paper stencil shirt!

The instructions elsewhere are as clear as anything I’d write, but what I learned today:

• For multiple color prints, don’t paint the under layers where the top layers will go; you build up too much ink if you have layer on top of layer. A bit of overlap to make registration easier would probably be fine.
• Iron a piece of freezer paper on the inside of the shirt before ironing any pattern on the outside; it will keep the outside fabric surface from wrinkling from the paint, stretching, etc.
• If you’ve a short or long torso, adjust the height of the stencil appropriately. (Duh, but see image below.)
• Shun the frumious bandersnatch!

Design copied (with permission) from Quadro’s fabric work:

When Diann and I were in Williamsburg in 2006 we purchased some delicious cherry cognac sauce which was somewhere between preserves and pie filling. It was fabulous on ice cream and, continuing yesterday’s cherry theme, I decided to try making something like it.

• 4 c. sweet cherries
• 3 Tbsp. lemon juice
• 2 tsp. almond extract
• ¾ c. sugar
• ½ c. black currant vodka
• 4 Tbsp. cornstarch dissolved in 2 Tbsp. water
• ¼ c. brandy

Cook the cherries, lemon juice, almond extract, sugar, and vodka in a saucepan for 20 minutes. While stirring, add the cornstarch mixture. Cook until thickened. Remove from heat and let stand 10 minutes. Thoroughly blend in the brandy. Spoon into jars and cool. Store in the refrigerator; serve over vanilla ice cream.

I may have used too much brandy above, but it tastes good so far. We’ll see how it turns out after it sits for a day or so.

From the Blacksburg Farmer’s Market, buy:

• one Weathertop Farms pastured chicken
• five cups of sweet cherries
• one loaf of sesame and wheat bread
• one head of leaf lettuce

Spatchcock/butterfly the chicken, brine it with garlic, sugar, pepper, and rosemary. Chuck it in the refrigerator for the afternoon.

Clean and pit the cherries. Add a little lemon juice, cornstarch solution, almond extract, and butter. Cheat and buy a couple pie crusts from the store (I hate making pastry dough). Pour in the cherries and cover with the second crust, cutting a few slits in the top. Throw it in the oven for about an hour.

Fire up the grill and drain the chicken. Baste it with an olive oil and rosemary mix and throw it on the grill (the half that isn’t on), breast side down and legs toward the hot center (dark meat needs to cook more). Close the lid. Flip and re-baste it every 15 minutes until done. Remove from grill and let stand 10 minutes before carving. Eat with a fresh green salad and tasty bread (not pictured, because by the time they were ready, we were too hungry for pictures).

The pie should be cooled enough to cut by the time you’re done with dinner.

Today, on this father’s day, my creative work is dedicated to my father; he taught me that doing is fun, and that I can learn to do anything.

Diann and I spent the time between breakfast and shower making potato stamps. I’ve cut a few linoleum and eraser block stamps for her over the last year or two, but hadn’t used potatoes since I was in high school art class. There’s something satisfying working with a stamp base that costs pennies, has limited resolution, and won’t last the week.

My friend Paul is raising money for his local Muscular Dystrophy Association and would greatly appreciate any donations that you could send his way.

My output from history|awk '{a[$2]++ } END{for(i in a){print a[i] ” ” i}}’|sort -rn.

58 dir
49 cd
44 svn
40 ssh
25 cat
21 sudo
21 make
18 telnet
18 svnmerge
18 rgrep
18 man
18 cvs
17 svndiff
14 scp
9 grep
8 route
7 kate
7 ifdata
6 kdesu
6 echo
5 ping
5 less

I’m ashamed that sudo is so far up there, but I just upgraded this box to Hardy and it took a bit of package juggling (proprietary video, VMware, etc.).

Jennifer Farris (our fabulous wedding photographer) posted a single photograph from our wedding, as a teaser. I’m very excited to see how the work turned out.

Also, a few of the photographs from my camera are over in the gallery — more to come.

And, finally, Diann points us to a few images from Sally’s camera.

Update: Jennifer just posted some new images.

Photo by Warren Gross (thanks!)

I finally took the time to grab the pictures…

…plus…

Hooray!

“It has become almost a cliché to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science.” — Richard Dawkins

It’s even worse with mathematics. At a dinner party, it appears to be okay to say “oh, I can’t do math,” but imagine the reactions you’d get if you said, “oh, I’m illiterate.”

I haven’t posted news in quite a while, so here goes:

I’ve been helping Diann with house projects, baking, playing nine ball (lost the LTC by one game), fixing poorly-made home appliances, hiking (Diann’s first time to the waterfall!), seeing the sights, baking some more, harassing the dog, re-working some plumbing I didn’t get right the first time, chilling on the couch, renovating the small bathroom (still not complete), and celebrating Evan’s big two.

Hey, I’m only about six months late with this. I didn’t forget, though!

Seven things to do before I die:

• be better than I am
• visit Florence
• have a vacation home; use it a lot
• build the perfect desk
• stay black and/or stick it to the man
• make the world a better place

Seven things I can’t do:

• touch my tongue to my nose
• remember my To-Do list
• sit still for long
• pass up fun
• abide
• come up with seven things for each of these

Seven things that attract me to my husband/wife/significant other:

• her untiring dedication to self-improvement
• her beauty
• her generosity
• her stubbornness
• her enchilladas
• her creativity

Seven things I most often say:

• “Pants.”
• “Dumpt dumpt.” (think: Law and Order)
• “Cake!”
• “In a perfect world…”
• “It works better if you plug it in.”
• “That’s not going to be good for business.”

Seven books (or series) I love:

• Dictionary of the Khazars (Milorad Pavic)
• The Everyday Work of Art (Eric Booth)
• Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling)
• Calvin and Hobbes (Bill Watterson)
• Ed Emberly’s Big Green Drawing Book
• Wikipedia

Seven movies I would watch over and over again:

• Amelie
• Dr. Strangelove
• La fille sur da pont (Girl On the Bridge)
• Toy Story
• Seven Years In Tibet
• Cannibal Stewardess Vixens Unchained

Seven people I want to join this meme, too:

• Diann (*nyah!*)
• Stephen
• Diana
• Eric
• Yanna Yana
• umm… Santa?

Outdoor dining weather is in full force here.

I’ve been meaning to post a few words of thanks to Diann here and properly give her credit for (among things too numerous to count) a lot of my site design ideas and motivation. She was the one who turned me on to div-based layouts, accessibility issues, and a host of other interesting matters. I teach her PHP and she teaches me CSS; quite the team!

Spring finally made a convincing appearance here this weekend. Much outdoor roaming and dog training was done.