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WhiskeyJack
Jul. 3rd, 2009
04:09 pm - Amazon reviews
I find that I learn a lot more about books I'm thinking about buying from the 1 and 2 star reviews than from the favorable reviews. A 5 star review always says, essentially, "I loved it, it was everything I wanted." The negative reviews frequently reveal a lot more about the reviewer: sometimes it is just "this stinks" but they usually stop to tell you why. An intelligent, insightful criticism can turn me off of something no matter how many favorable reviews it has. OTOH - if all the 1-star reviewers are a bunch of kooks I can't wait to buy it.
Jun. 19th, 2009
08:29 am - Cross Training for Moms
One of the nice benefits of riding horses is that I have to become very aware of exactly what my body is doing. When the horse pulls against my hand I have a tendency to first pull back slightly but then give her more rein. I wasn't aware of doing it - the instructor had to point it out. It's a bad habit because the slack rein is a reward for the horse so I am effectively training her to pull on my hand. This led to a conversation about how you are always training the horse. Sometimes people will ride on an off day and do something really wrong so she would correct them and they say, "Oh - well my lesson isn't until tomorrow." It doesn't matter - the horse doesn't make a distinction between lesson/not lesson so it's always important that you be aware of what you are teaching.
It is, of course, the same with dogs and also with children. You are always teaching them something - what are you teaching? I need to be aware.
We talked some about how to ride on a trail - you don't want to spend 2-4 hours constantly asking for perfection from the horse. The solution: don't ask. If you ask the horse to do something you need to make sure that it happens but if you know you won't have the time/ability to enforce it in the novel environment, make sure you don't ask. I learned the same things with dogs. When you teach a dog "come" at first you make sure that the dog is on a leash so if he doesn't understand or comply you can pull him over yourself. You move up to asking for it in a quiet place (no distractions) when you have a treat. Eventually you move up to asking in places where there are more and more distractions until, you hope, you can call your dog away from chasing a rabbit into a busy road and he will come because the response has become so automatic. If you rush the process and try to call him away from, say, playing with other dogs before he is ready you wind up saying "Come. Come! Come!" and you've just taught him that your words are meaningless.
I realize this is also true with kids but for some reason I find it much harder to apply. I remember when my son was running naked through the JCPenney I felt a lot of social pressure to 'discipline' - which is to say I felt like the other adults expected me to yell or say "Now cut that out!" in a stern voice. I didn't that time, but I have done it at other times. The kids are wild, I know I can't really get them to settle down but people are watching so I feel like I need to make the useless gesture. I need to stop that because it doesn't help me at all.
Jun. 7th, 2009
09:45 am - Help with handouts?
I'm looking for handouts to use while teaching 9 year olds geocaching. Does anyone know of anything good about maps, latitude-longitude or orienteering?
May. 23rd, 2009
08:17 pm - Geocaching
I logged my first geocache finds today. I've found 2 before now but I hadn't bothered getting set up. Squirrel really liked it and was upset that we only looked for 3 when there were clearly 8 in the park. We now have something to do the next time we head out there.
We had the dog with us and that wasn't so great after all. He's really weak. In the off-leash area he went down a steep hill and then couldn't get back up again. The kids tried to lead him up to no avail and finally Dad had do climb down and carry him out in stages (he doesn't like being carried). We kept him on leash after that and he didn't fall but he did take every opportunity to rest. He'll be 15 this summer.
May. 20th, 2009
01:03 pm - Old Photos
I made copies of these while I was visiting my mother:
( Read more... )
May. 2nd, 2009
09:08 pm - Gardening Day
I went to the Master Gardener Plant Sale today and got a vine maple, a japanese maple seedling and 5 tomato plants: Sungold, Super Sweet 100, Sun Cherry, Big Beef and Bloody Butcher. Then I played around in the yard and forgot to watch the Derby.
I also found this cute link.
May. 1st, 2009
02:40 pm - I don't want to do anything
I don't want to work, I don't want to clean. I'd like to sit out on the deck and drink margaritas and watch the kids play. Preferably without moving. And I don't want to cook dinner.
Apr. 26th, 2009
10:22 pm - Bread and My Awesomeness
I've got the sandwich bread recipe down pat now - I've been making it every few days and it's pretty consistent and this point. But before today I wasn't able to re-create the crusty, chewy, wonderful bread that I usually buy from Central Market when we get their clam chowder. That is no longer the case! I followed a recipe for an 'artisan' bread, omitting the buttermilk because I didn't have any and success! I'm going to try this one a few more times to make sure I've got it, then move on to Caraway Rye.
Apr. 25th, 2009
10:39 am - The Dog
No matter how many times per day I go outside and pick up poop, the dog can always make more, then step in it, then track it onto my carpets.
Apr. 21st, 2009
08:41 am - Why do I do this?
I started reading a library book that I need to return and wound up staying awake until 3AM to finish it. It's not like I can sleep in today.
An unrelated question: why does Comet cleaner come in a can that looks exactly like grated parmesan cheese? Can this but end in tragedy?
Apr. 18th, 2009
06:50 pm - Food
I've been on a tear. I've made all of our bread for the last 2 weeks. I still don't have the 'artisan' recipe working but I've got the basic sandwich bread down pat. We made pasta noodles once, then I tried to make manicotti but I wasn't pleased with the result. Last week we borrowed the ravioli attachment for the pasta machine and made ravioli. I haven't figured out the trick to getting enough filling inside. Then last night I tried for pierogis. The pasta machine was good for rolling the dough out thin but was too sticky/stretchy to go through the ravioli machine. We wound up cutting circles and stuffing them by hand. Tonight we are making pizza from scratch and I might cap it off with strawberry shortcake for dessert.
Apr. 17th, 2009
Apr. 10th, 2009
02:27 pm - You people have been holding me back long enough!
In the last 3 hours (she was strapped into a car seat and asleep for one of those hours) my two-year-old has done the following: opened the hot oven door, poured water on the leather couch from a 'spill proof bottle', dropped bread crumbs all over the carpet where she is not allowed to bring food, tried to eat from the dogs bowl, drank water from an outdoor whiskey barrel (where the dog drinks), climbed all over me while crying and being angry, fed 1/3 of my fresh rolls to the dog, hit me, torn apart 2 loaves of bread that I just took out of the oven, fallen down and hit her head, climbed part way up the cabinets trying to get to the pretty pink antibiotics and dumped a package of pistachio nuts all over the kitchen table and floor. I haven't even looked upstairs to see what she may have done there.
I would like run away and join the circus. Any leads?
I'm trying to get the house clean for parties tomorrow and instead I think I'm going to have a stroke.
Apr. 8th, 2009
04:10 pm - Bread and the Dark Arts
This week I pulled out the bread machine and took a stab at making bread. I haven't made any bread in *years* so I considered it more of a science experiment than anything. I've made 4 loaves so far. Number 5 is rising right now. ( Read more... )
Apr. 5th, 2009
12:25 pm - Gardening
I have small onions to transplant and bay leaves for your spice cabinet if anyone wants them.
Apr. 3rd, 2009
09:42 am - Public Service Announcement
Tomorrow (Sat the 4th) is 25% off cheese day at Central Market!
Apr. 2nd, 2009
11:33 pm - Quick review
We took a little mini-vacation at Great Wolf Lodge early this week. It's an indoor water park that opened recently near here. Since we never feel like it's warm enough to go to an outdoor water park we thought we'd give this one a try.
( Read more... )
Mar. 19th, 2009
10:23 am - New Toy & slight problem
I went ahead and bought myself an ASUS 1000HE Netbook so I can work while traveling. I blew away the Windows OS and installed eeebuntu remix (for netbooks specifically). It's pretty cute and I'm getting used to playing with it.
My problem: the touchpad is a bit over-sensitive but this install, for whatever reason, does not have a way to adjust the touchpad sensitivity. I have been unable to get a good workaround. Does anyone else know if this is a problem for other versions of Ubuntu? Sonja? You have 8.10 on your netbook, right? Can you adjust the touchpad sensitivity and turn tap-to-click on and off? I currently have 2 finger scrolling which I like and don't want to lose but I really need to adjust it.
Update:
So it turns out the "mouse configuration" will actually reduce the sensitivity of the touchpad as well. I'm seeing if that fixes all my problems now. It won't allow me to turn off the 'tap to click' which seems to be causing a lot of it.
OTOH - the headphones don't work and I get an error message about not having the right key to access some update.
Mar. 15th, 2009
02:13 pm - Makes perfect sense
A resolution by the Oklahoma legislature to (try to) prevent Richard Dawkins from speaking on campus because they support freethinking and an open exchange of ideas.
Mar. 12th, 2009
09:40 am - Smells like pee....
Either my son needs a little refresher course from Dad about "aim" or both of my upstairs toilets have started leaking at the same time.
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