Monday, December 1, 2008

Home sweet home

Here are a few pictures of my lovely room at Millstone, aka my first attempt at living in a room that wouldn't often be described as 'hovel.' Many thanks to family and friends for inspiration. I would also like to thank Ikea, and the color green.

The coupe d'organization. Dealing with my closet is like playing Tetris.

Paper lanterns + craptastic overhead lighting + long exposure times = awesome.

The bed (84" x 64") is 5,376 square inches. The room (130" x 118") is 15,340 square inches. Fortunately, the only thing I do in my room is sleep, and it's an extremely comfortable mattress. 

Eventually there will be photographs underneath the accent lighting.

I need to find a place to keep my guitar that's not right next to the radiator. For now, I just leave it turned off. 

It's a small space, but totally comfortable. So long as I keep things tidy. It helps if I pretend it's on a boat...


Monday, November 17, 2008

INSECTS


117 insects in a box. 

Adding the labels only took me five hours today.

Yay grad school!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Mecca


I finally got around to visiting Walden this morning. Chris and I rode up the Minuteman trail to Bedford, then headed south to Concord. After a nice little bite to eat in a cafe, we rode on to the pond. 

We were only there for a few minutes, but what a place. A visceral thrill I hadn't expected went up my spine as soon as we saw the water. It was somehow smaller than I had pictured it, and very neat -- mottled evergreen and autumn gold oaks coming right down to the water; very little in the way of marshy, sinuous shoreline, at least on the banks we could see. 

As we were leaving, a fellow came strolling by with a rod and reel and a little cooler. He says there's good fishing in this pond, which I don't doubt. I can't wait to go back out there, my mind wandering through vast and cosmogonal spheres, and toss my own line down into a pond that is still, a century and a half later, hardly more dense.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Mmm, bread

Despite the time pressure of grad school, I've recently found myself baking bread on a fairly regular basis. Hour-for-hour, it's hands-down my greatest sanity booster -- what brings you down to earth better than piping hot, crusty, chewy bread fresh of the oven? 

Of course, that's only true because I'm not spending hours baking the stuff. Enter Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois. (Thanks, Danica!) It really is absurdly simple to make, and despite a few sticky-handed wobbles in my first few attempts, a relatively bulletproof method. 

And it's tasty! Our house has a bread machine, and while it's great for sandwiches, I've never been too keen on the crumb or crust. These loaves come out with the delicious, chewy, open crumb I favor for more direct presentations (eg plain or with hummus, cheese, vinegar & oil, etc). 
There -- hungry yet?

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Deskorganization

There are some who would criticize me for a certain lack of organization -- or, as I prefer to call it, my "generative chaos."

To them, I would simply offer this clear example of what is without question a methodically organized mind:
Naturally, we keep the things most important closest to us. I propose eliminating "things that stack" from my workplace in an effort to minimize clutter.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Big storms

Sorry for the delay in posting, although I think I was probably hanging out with the two people who read this blog anyway (thanks, Mom and Dad).

Here are some pictures of the storm damage at George's House. Apologies for the quality -- camera phone!

Don't tell Sophie I took this picture. That is the half of the tree that zigged...

... and this half zagged, right into the fence.

Like most of the trees that came down, this one broke about halfway up the trunk. I speculate that this is because it didn't rain much, so the soil was hard enough to keep the roots down. Both of the trees at George's house were forked with two main trunks starting about 12 feet in the air, and both broke at the fork.

Crappy close-up. You can see that it narrowly missed the garden shed.

The remnants of the two trunks that blocked the driveway. That rosemary bush used to be a little less squished.

Fun times! All told, it could have been worse.