Thanksgiving approaches!

A new camera arrived just in time for the holiday season, so we snapped a couple of test photos.

This new piece of hardware takes pictures, captures HD video, and would probably mow the lawn, if we had one.

Did you know digital cameras can wear out? While Sunny's HP PhotoSmart still takes pictures, they sometimes fail to transfer onto a computer successfully, so we're forced to just delete them instead. :-P

In order to comply with all Internet regulations, here's a picture of our cat.

Looking forward to this thursday, when we make bread and cranberry sauce for a friend's Thanksgiving dinner!

PAX 2009 - A weekend away

We came, we met friends, geeks, and cos-players (costumed characters from other worlds). We also saw a great Saturday night concert of synth pop musicians, Freezepop. A good time was had by all !

More photos and stories coming soon...

Falmouth, Cape Cod Weekend

Food tables overflowed with savory and sweets alike to compliment the turkey chili that Courtney makes weeks and months in advance for the Falmouth Road Race post-race party. The scene was boisterous and loud at Courtney and Carolyn’s annual party, a tradition since 1972. Dozens of families and friends had come from all around the Cape, but especially from the Falmouth and Woods Hole towns. Each guest brought another pie, cheese, or plate of cookies, adding to the already full tables. In addition to food, two kegs of beer were tapped and many bottles of wine were opened. The pours were generous but more kept coming along with sodas and Capri Sun pouches for the kids. The crowds at Courtney's rivaled those at the race earlier...

Hoards of grandparents and kids swarmed the yard, deck, and house at the feet of the able-bodied adults, most of whom were current/former runners. Guests swapped stories of the day’s run, running club gossip, and tales of old/new running injuries. (For more on my run and fitness-oriented weekend at Falmouth, please see my SunnyDayFitness blog here). Ulandt must have introduced me to a dozen people, but eventually we all lost track of each other’s names, gave up on conversation, and just enjoyed the party. In the backyard, an old-time Dixieland jazz band entertained with horns, a banjo, a trombone and drums. Dancing started on the lawn as the sun was setting over the marsh at the backyard’s edge. Lights came on over the bandstand illuminating smiling faces like fireflies in the night. It was so loud at times that I sometimes found myself at the fringe edge of the party, seeking solace in the quiet side garden out of sight of the guests and hosts. Contrast this exuberant scene with the calm disappointment found in my failed attempt at bioluminescent critter-finding later that same evening.

After the party had reached its zenith, my friend Ulandt and I ventured down to the water’s edge at Woods Hole with hopes of seeing funny little jellyfish that glow in the dark. Ulandt said that he had seen the bioluminescence many times before on summer nights like these. To get to the best viewing area we drove a long, winding dark road that is part of the Cape Cod Marathon course: Sippiwessett Road. The air was dark and cool and smelled like summer. Arriving at the harbor we decided to stay near the harbor docks and peered into the rippled water’s edge. Nothing. No glowing baubles or fishes could be seen in the depth or at the shores. Only dark and quiet gently moving water. Ulandt decided that a little disturbance could help our efforts, so he dipped a foot into the water’s surface and kicked it around a little. We waited and looked. Still nothing. He had seen the bioluminescent “ctenophores” before, but I never had, and this was not to be the night for me to see them. Here's what we were looking for, the ctenophore:

So we went home, and took advantage of the extra time to sleep on that calm summer night. By 11pm Ulandt had retired to the back cabin while I stayed awake in the main house. I plotted out the route on the map for the “return to Plymouth and catch the train” ride: 30-35 miles. I would just need to cross the Bourne Bridge and make my way to Plymouth for the Commuter Rail. Eagerly anticipating the journey ahead, I drifted off to dream about the glowing sea creatures still to be seen on a future visit to the Cape. P.S. I did just barely make it to the Commuter Rail the next day; on board the departing train at 12:10pm.

Gus-tastic!

Here is my nephew, Gus, age 12 months.

At 1 year old he can sit, squeal, give people "the stink eye" and make friends with other babies and toddlers at restaurants. He's a pretty social little guy.

Some great baby-like things that I love about him are:

• Still bathes in the kitchen sink, but is eating real food now even if fully pureed.
• Enjoys naps in his car sets and doesn't mind the stiff breeze from the Jeep with the doors off -- though I do wonder if baby-seats were really designed for Jeeps!?
• Loves to be upside down and spun around, too!

He's my kind of nephew. Check him out...

I think he'll be a wedding singer someday.

Now for the videos -- prepare yourself for the Cute!

Isn't it cute how he rearranges the magazines and catalogs;

so here's my attempt at 12 seconds of maximal Gus cuteness.

Gus gets distracted by magazines

I have several great Gus photos from the recent trip, but this one is among the best. I tell ya, the kid was *obsessed* with magazines!

He would spread them out all over and flip through the smaller, kid-sized (or probably purse-sized) ones as if he wanted to read or order something. Maybe he'll convince mommy and daddy to buy something nice for themselves? He's such a cutie.

Gus gets distracted by magazines

Family visit to Aaron and Stacey + Nephew GUS in Raleigh

These photos and many more were uploaded to flickr for matthewsunessa today. Feel free to browse the whole photos set "Raleigh Visit 2009" for more photos, witty titles, and so on.

It was really nice to meet Gus -- more photos of him in the next posting -- and to reconnect with Aaron and Stacey. They are wonderful hosts, easy to be around as friends, and a joy to call "family". I enjoy how much they laugh together and how clearly they enjoy their son, home, and garden that they've grown there in Raleigh.

We saddle up to the ice cream bar

Aaron gives the Meredith College campus tour Matthew and Stacey with their gelatos

Sunny and the weeping redwood

We look forward to seeing the campus in full bloom next spring, and to seeing another birthday (many more actually!) for our little Gus-ster. I know he'll be a toddler soon, but what a little chunk he is now!

Housing project complete: wall speakers!

No photos to accompany this until it's prettier, but one of the rooms now includes in-wall speakers. Woo! All the better to rock out with.

Sticking speakers into the wall means audio hardware, tools to cut a hole, and wiring to tie them together. I used three things.

1. $50 Muro Concept 6 Indoor-Outdoor speakers from Buy.com
2. $6 two-speaker wall plate from Amazon.com
3. $0 speaker wire (~20') culled from every guy's Big Box o' Cables

The Muros don't use a special speaker case, so only need 4" of in-wall clearance. Preparing the space meant cutting into the strange wall that separates the main bedroom and office. I call it "strange" because of the secrets and bits of history thus revealed.

1. Top layer: tag board
2. Next layer: sheetrock
3. Third layer: lathed plaster
4. Fourth layer (on one side): plywood

That last one covered a door-sized opened now filled with insulation, so the two rooms probably joined up the past. One thing's for sure: the house's previous owners would much rather layer over a problem than fix it properly. We saved a (future) step by removing the tag board entirely and plan to repaint the sheetrock later on. (This will also look 10 times better than crappy 70s particle board.)

Putting something inside a wall takes an act of faith and willingness to fail. After all, who knows what's behind it until there's a really big hole? Did that stud finder miss something? (Four layers of stuff definitely confused the readings.)

Fortunately, most of my cutting went into open space and we created no disaster cleanup scenarios. The toughest part proved the plywood and sheetrock, which had very little space between. We solved the problem by wedging some space at the top and bottom of the wall, taping the wire to a couple of 9-volt batteries,  and dropping the whole mess between them.

Once the wire got through, it proved relatively simple to hook up the wall plate. We stuck the resulting contraption over an unused telephone box and hid the loose wiring behind the baseboard. Success! The speakers sound sharp and we gain further knowledge of what is actually behind the painted facade of our 100+ year-old house. Whether we tell the next owners what's going on in the walls remains to be seen.

Apologies for the delay...

Dear Family and Friends,

We have no excuse for not updating this blog more often. We have not disappeared from the face of the earth. In February, Sunny went to Savannah while Matthew stayed home to infuse vodkas, but a lot of other things have been happening, too.

It's been a busy spring season with Matthew's finishing his last class for his Master's degree and Sunny's starting of her personal training business. March feels like a blur and frenzy of activity, and now it's almost Easter. Where has the month gone?

If you click over to the Flickr photos, you can see some our other recent distractions and enjoyments. To name a few recent Flickr sets:

• 3/5 "date night" to celebrate our new Domestic Partnership status
  
• 3/6-3/7 Sunny's Mt. Cardigan snowshoe/hut stay/X-C ski trip
  
  
• 3/17-3/22 Matt visits his dad, Moses, in Arizona for family time with Sunny, Dinah, and the kids -- they even had llamas for us to see at the zoo and waterfalls to hike.
  
  
• 
• 4/3 - Matthew's birthday had to be celebrated with friends coming over
  
• 4/4-4/11 Matt visit's his brother Amos in Park City, Utah, with Sunny, Mom, dad, and Nate all joining in for some killer scrabble games and spring skiing
• 

  

So yeah, we've been a bit off-line and bit busier than usual. We hope you'll enjoy the photos, call or e-mail for more about what we've been up to, and keep in touch through the rest of spring.

Happy Easter all...Love, -Sunessa

A weekend of infused vodkas (and the recipes thereof)

Sunny's visiting Savannah, GA, this weekend to get away from snowy, snowy Boston. I'm using this quality time to try out various homebrew concoctions, including two different kinds of infused vodkas. Over the last ten years, many bars and distilleries realized the truth: vodka doesn't really taste like anything. Many people already used it for cocktails, something I do myself, but you can add real zest to the drink itself by going the extra mile and giving it an innate flavor.

"Infusing" typically means soaking something in the vodka for a long time, even a month or two, and adding some sugar or simple syrup for sweetness. You then strain out whatever you flavored it with and transfer the final product to a bottle for later consumption.

I've been sitting on the infused vodka idea for quite a while, but it really doesn't take long to make a reality. You only need six things for the task.

1. 750ml of vodka

2. Thing to infuse

3. Cup of sugar (if creating a syrup)

4. Pan

5. Airtight container, such as a pitcher, a to store the vodka in for the "soak" stage

6. A good strainer, such as cheesecloth.

I made two flavoring syrups, one with cranberries and one with blueberries. Fresh berries would be ideal, but I used bags from the store freezer case. Simply cook them in the pan with sugar over medium heat until both combine and get gooey. (The cranberries looked like the picture above.) You might be tempted to make pancakes and pour the contents of your pan on it. Resist this temptation! Your vodka is all about patience, a virtue even nobler than quality breakfast foods.

Once complete, pour the sticky mess into the container and add the vodka. Seal the top and store it somewhere that'll stay warm, at least at room temperature. (I've been told sunlight is good for the process, so perhaps a window sill?) Wait anywhere from a week to a month for everything to settle and combine. Once you can't wait anymore, open the container and check the flavor. If it's too sharp or sour, add simple syrup to taste. I go for something pleasant that could stand alone in a glass. Otherwise, why do all the work? Finally, pour the sweet ensemble through the strainer back into the bottle so you have nothing but the re-purposed vodka. (This might take several filterings.) Some people switch to a decorative jar and give away the end result. I would totally accept that kind of gift.

Our Flickr account includes a slideshow of the cooking process with some commentary.

More January time to ski!

HPIM2829
Originally uploaded by matthewsunessa

Many local schools and businesses closed today. They anticipated a wintry mix with possibly 4-8" new snow starting this morning. This made for nearly clear roads and many snowy sidewalks as everyone stayed home...well everyone except Sunny.

Both Terry and Matthew worked remotely today, but I couldn't teach a group training class from my living room, so I skied down Mass Ave to the gym. I was easy-going about my pace and got there in about 15 minutes. Naturally, no one showed up for the group training, so I did a little computer work for next month's classes/groups and then skied home. This time in the sleet! Yucky, but slippery and still good conditions for skiing.

On both the "aller et retour" I enjoyed the ski wear given to me by Matthew's Mom, Judy, who somehow knew that the blue-greens would match my skis and my eyes! Is she psychic or what?

Taking on the Ben and Jerry's "Vermonster"

Friday night, one of our friends ran an "ice cream crawl" for his birthday. We started at a specialty dessert restaurant called Finale in Harvard Square, moved on to local chain J.P. Lick's, and finished with the massive Ben & Jerry's "Vermonster," a mega-sundae that you need lots of help to consume. (This also spreads the obligation around a little, given the dish's amazing $35 cost!)

We got five different flavors in the big plastic tub, more than a dozen scoops of ice cream, and heaped on five toppings above and beyond the automatic hot fudge, nuts, and whipped cream. Our best topping choice was bananas (tastes great with vanilla or chocolate) and our worst was gummy bears, which freeze up and become crunchy gum, a poor texture match for the ice cream.

The picture shows me contributing my stomach to the task. It took about 40 minutes to reach the final step, a cup of syrupy soup. Fortunately, the birthday boy knocked it back without a second thought, saving us the less-than-appetizing task. The store keeper took our picture for the wall of those who'd consumed the whole thing, which always took a handful of folks, and sometimes several. (One amusing photo does show a team that failed, sad faces on display.)

Tales from the Bread Machine: Hearty Flaxseed

Matthew turned out this loaf last night between two pleasurable tasks. First, this Christmas yielded a new Nintendo DS cartridge called "Personal Trainer: Cooking." It guides you through a large number of recipes from a dozen cuisines. Last night, he made blueberry / cranberry / raisin coulis, which the program classified as a German dessert. (Sunny thinks of it more as a topping.) We then re-watched the documentary "Bigger, Stronger, Faster," a highly recommended and wide-ranging examination of the social impact of performance-enhancing drugs. Totally worth the two hours of your time.

Anyway, this bread resembles a flaxseed loaf we did in the past, but allows for raisins as a mid-point addition. (Bread machines with "fruit & nut" cycle allow you to mix in more stuff just before baking.) I kept waiting for it to beep and alert me to the "add stuff now" moment. Turns out you put the fruit in a side compartment and it does the work automatically. Oh well, next time.

We used the FRUIT & NUT setting with MEDIUM crust.

Look: Bubbly top that looks a little underdone, but inside definitely baked
Cut: Crispy crust, dense interior
Taste: Not as flavorful as expected, probably from lack of raisins (the recipe says to adds cinnamon when you leave out fruit, which we did accidentally)

Brrr...live from Boston, it's New Year's Eve!

HPIM2679.JPG
Originally uploaded by matthewsunessa

We met up, went out, and then promptly went back in. Inside is where the warmth and love was on the last night of 2008. The ice sculptures and howling winds were only made better by the warm, free T ride back to Cambridge.

Once there, Patti made hot chocolate (Gharadelli's with Hood whipped cream, yum!) and Matthew made a few good/evil cocktails. We played boggle (woohoo?) and then watched Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest do the "Live from New York's Times Square" thing on the TV. Boo hoo to NBC because Mr. Clark is so old now and Mr. Seacrest seems to be already washed up, too.

At least we had champagne to drink, which I popped and poured just seconds before the Final Countdown (and check out Freezepop's cover of the pop masterpiece). Anyway, Cheers!