Pickle this

Converting local cukes to pickles tonight.. 4 qts halved dill using picklenet Kosher Garlic recipe (more or less), including our accidental red pepper and blanching the garlic for safety, and 7 pts sliced bread-and-butter using the Joy of Cooking (old edition) recipe. The newer Joy left out so much of what made it a great cooking encyclopedia - no more canning recipes, instructions on how to prepare exotic game meats, fewer alternate recipes. That's why we keep both in the house.

In other news 2/3 way through emptying out the new office room (SE downstairs room). Had fun finding some old journals from the mid-90s, including an interesting one covering 1 1/2 years from 1995-1996. Living in Saranac Lake and loving the mountains but never having any money. Journal entries ended right before I moved to Burlington to take some classes at UVM... which then led to the move to Alaska the following April. Otherwise I never have had much luck keeping journals, except for when I'm out exploring the backcountry or on field trips. Interesting that the one I kept the best was when I was working hard to change my career and the course of my life and had more free time. Besides the common entries about hiking and backcountry skiing, commentary on prospective significant others (including my current wife), working out at the gym and the constant struggle with over-eating, it's fun to read how I moved toward the decision to leave for Burlington, catalyst for my career. I'd also forgotten about burning my course materials once I decided not to teach math anymore - pretty dramatic there.

Now there's a memory - in spring 1995, a woman who worked with me at North Country Community College encouraged me to run as a Republican for a local office. Seriously. I never did understand why she thought I'd be interested - in fact, why I'd even be any good at it. That was odd.

Productive day at work and good lab meeting at school where we critiqued each others' abstracts. Got some good ideas.

The one critique that mattered came out in my favor - my abstract (written in June) was accepted for an oral presentation at the marine mammal conference this December. Very good news - now have to get that talk ready before Junior arrives.