tw's blog

Bad Tea

Do you love coffee? Or soda, or some other perky drink? Then perhaps you are annoyed now and then by reports of the health benefits of tea, with its antioxidants and its relaxing cultural traditions. Or perhaps a tea snob has extolled the refined subtleties of flavor it offers. So you know it’s a habit you should cultivate, instead of whatever depraved beverage or daily habit you currently pursue in the search for stimulation and/or security.

Well, I’m here to help you out. Because the procedure I am about to set forth will, if followed faithfully, allow you to say, honestly and with pride, “No thanks - I’ve tried tea, and I hated it.” read more...

A gnostic ex-Catholic atheist Buddhist's Christmas carols

The following were actually written in the car one or two years ago; I just came across them again and decided it was the right time.

I’m dreaming of a green Christmas

I’m dreaming of a green Christmas
So I don’t have to shovel snow
’Cause when I start liftin’,
My spine starts shiftin’,
And soon, my back will start to go… read more...

New media

Sneezy pumpkin

Some new photos are up on the Gallery - both miscellaneous Fall people shots and a separate album for Halloween shots (and I assume I’ll have more tomorrow). I’m particularly excited about the sneezy pumpkin that Clara, Katherine and I made today, and about the new video I’ve finally managed to figure out how to publish from my camera phone.

I think I’ve got stuff set up correctly now so that new additions to the Gallery will automatically show up on the left side of this site. This without a single line of code, because Gallery publishes changes in RSS and Drupal can subscribe to them. Did I mention Drupal rocks?

Sump pump connection

You may recall that one of the features of my sump pump alarm was that I could theoretically hear it from bed.

It turns out that I can not only hear it from bed, I can hear it from bed while the train that woke me up is still passing through and the life companion is snoring. At almost exactly two AM. So that’s good to know. I would have been OK if that theory had never been confirmed, though.

And as I stumbled into my clothes and outside to the basement door, trying to avoid opening my eyes at all, I remembered Candace asking whether I really wanted a gadget that would read more...

Sump pump victory!

Sump pump alarm - beauty shot

So last night, we were sitting around with Karen, Lou, and Molly, and both Karen and Katherine said they heard an alarm beeping. I listened for a few seconds, and heard the distinctive “long, long, short short short” of my sump pump alarm. I swung into action! read more...

New pictures

New pictures, mostly of Clara of course, are up in the Gallery. These include shots from my new camera phone. The picture quality isn’t great, but it sure is handy that I’ve always got it with me.

Big waterfall

It’s been bugging me that Clara hasn’t seen any of Ithaca’s waterfalls. (Well, she did last year, but she doesn’t remember that.) She saw this puny little stream flowing over rocks at the Buffalo Zoo, and it was very nice and otters were playing in it and all, but she kept talking about the “water falling,” and, once instructed, the waterfall. We live in Waterfall Central, so her experience needed widening. read more...

Hello, world!

After about nine years of exhibitionism on my Lightlink page, it's now become time for me to have my own domain. A .com domain would have more cachet, and I almost went with tjdub.com (shorter, too), but Katherine convinced me that it would be good to use something people could remember, so here we are.

I've been using Drupal as a site-management tool on a number of sites lately, and so I've put it up here and will base this new site around it. I love it like an engineer loves a good new tool. According to Harry Kim of Voyager, the Five Steps of the Ferengi Process of Acquisition (or something like that) are: read more...

Sir Saynomore's Last Quest

I guess it didn't turn out too well for him. But who could predict giant Muppets? read more...