2010 Metrics: Reading

I read 60 books in 2010, down a bit from my reading totals in 2008 and 2009.

All but two of the books I read were fiction, the exceptions being The Blind Side, by Michael Lewis, and Craig Ferguson's outstanding memoir American on Purpose. I like fiction. I read for entertainment and escape and I usually choose fiction.

As my word cloud of authors shows, I read a few folks more than once last year. I read three by Chris Knopf, who writes anti-hero mysteries set in Southampton. I like the off-beat nature of his characters and the fact that he sets his stories in a beach resort, often off-season. It rings bells for me. I also read three of Neil Gaiman's books. All of these I had read before. Mr. Gaiman is a personal favorite.

Among those I read twice was Jack Kerouac, who appealed to me this past fall for some reason. I really enjoyed travelling back to his time.

As usual, most of the books I read in 2010 came from the Lewes Public Library. Forty-seven -- 78% -- were library books and thirteen -- 22% -- I either bought or borrowed from family members.

Me in 1983

me in 1983
Originally uploaded by mmahaffie

I've been meaning to post this, or something like it. This is a picture of me in my dorm room at Colby College in 1983, when I was a 21 year old junior. I tell folks I work with that I used to have long hair. Here's the proof.

2010 Metrics: Gas Mileage

Over the last year, we drove our 2008 Toyota Scion a total of 15,407.2 miles, down a bit from 2009's total of 16,737.6 miles. Over the year, we burned 481.27 gallons of gas, averaging 32 miles per gallon. The gas cost us $1,313.19; or $2.72 per gallon on average. By contrast, I paid $3.02 for a gallon today.

Gas mileage varied more this year than last.The best we did was between September 5 and September 22, when we averaged 35.6 miles per gallon. Most of that was highway driving -- to and from the airport for travel to the 2010 NSGIC conference.

Two time periods were tied for worst gas mileage, at 29.2 mpg. One was between January 28 and February 3, when it was fairly cold (with a little snow). The other low-point came immediately following the high-point. Between September 22 and October 5 we also averaged 29.2 mpg, but I have no idea why.

The metrics above are for the period between December 31, 2009 and December 31, 2010. They are derived from my gas mileage log, which is maintained as a Google spreadsheet. I also record mileage using Matt Haughey's fuelly.com, which tells me that my long-term average mileage -- since the summer of 2008 --  has been 32.1 miles per gallon.

Restaurant (Ristorante) Review: Luca

Karen and I headed over to Millsboro this evening to try out the new Italian restaurant - Luca - that opened there this month. We'd both noticed it driving through town and decided to check it out.

Luca is a small place, in the old Delaware Trust Co. bank building, from  1916, at the corner of Main and State Streets. It has been lovingly finished inside, with pressed-tin ceilings, hardwood floors and a bar designed to look like a teller's counter.

The old bank vault has been turned into a private dining room. This evening, a group of about 8 was in there. That was a little tight, but the vault looks like a cool place to eat.

The food, admittedly based only on two data points, was great. Karen had a ravioli dish that looked both light and rich. She was impressed. I had a rolled pork-loin dish that was really outstanding.

I am ready to return and try a few more dishes.

Snow-Related, Panoramic Time Series

9:00 a.m.

10:00 a.m.

11:00 a.m.

A Snowy Day

Delaware is getting hit with a minor blizzard this Boxing Day. It's one of those Nor'Easter storms that hugs the coast; the snow started from the south and east and is working its way up to the north.

We spent last night in Bethesda, Maryland. We'd had Christmas Day with my family there and planned to spend today in Upper Marlboro with most of Karen's family. The changing forecast for the storm tortured us for most of the day. When we went to bed last night it looked bad and this morning conformed it. We had to leave early.

We made a quick stop in Bowie to drop off gifts with Karen's sister and left for home at about 10:30, with a few snowflakes starting to fall there. By the Bay Bridge, snow was falling heavily enough to obscure the horizon. By Denton the roads were wet and by Bridgeville they started to become snow covered. 

It was east of Bridgeville that we crossed some sort of border and into the heaviest part of the storm. The roads became thickly covered and our speed steadily decreased. The ride from Georgetown over to Lewes was slow and slippery with nearly white-out conditions. 

But we made it. there's a fire in the grate and warm blankets all around.

My Blessings

mahaffie family portrait
Originally uploaded by mmahaffie

Forgive me for counting them for a moment. From left to right:

1. Colleen. Turned 19 today. Doing well as a freshman at Villanova and showing new talents every day.
2. The Lovely Karen. My wife of 22 years. I'm amazed she said yes.
3. (I get to put on funny outfits and be someone else on stage every once in a while)
4. Christina. Just astounded us as the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker.

I have three beautiful, talented women in my life.

It's a Conversation Starter (Sometimes)

I wear a pin with the Grateful Dead's lightning bolt logo on the lapel of my winter jacket. One of my daughters gave it to me for Christmas a year or so ago and I've been wearing it proudly ever since.

It gets occasional notice, usually from another deadhead passing by (there are a few of us here in Lower Slower Delaware). But sometimes it leads to cool conversations with less likely people.

This morning, as I sat in the waiting room of my eye doctor's office, an elderly woman sitting across from me asked about it. When I told her it was the logo of a rock band, she told me the story of teaching her grandson to play the drums. He's now 25 and delights in announcing who taught him when his rock band plays.

Glückwunsch-und-Ironie-Freude?

I'm searching for the right hipster/German word to describe my reaction to news yesterday that News Journal reporters Chad Livengood and Maureen Milford had won first place for beat reporting in the third-quarter Awards of Excellence contest of parent company Gannett.

My first thought was congratulations (Glückwunsch), but then I read the award text and realized I had to shoe-horn in a dose of irony (Ironie, ironically):

I'm fairly sure we don't have a Chateau County in Delaware. There is "Chateau country," though. It's a rich-folks subset of New Castle County.

When Hobbies Collide

I like beer. I like to take pictures. I like to record the minutiae of life. Therefore...

Over the years, along with Lewes, Dover, nature, vacation sites and events in family life, I've been taking pictures of beers I've enjoyed. Not all of them, but beer on vacations and special occasions, beers enjoyed for the fist time, and sometimes when I just feel like it. It often embarrasses my daughters, but I like it.

Eye-Surgery Report (I Can See Clearly Now)

This is the "before" picture of my eye-glasses. This is what I have been wearing for a year or so now as a cataract has grown in my right eye. You can see its growth in the relative size of that right lens as compared to the left. And I could have sprung for an even thicker lens over the last 9 months if I wanted to see fully clearly.

Today, by contrast, I have a plain piece of plastic in the right side; no prescription at all. And my eye doctor has just tested that eye as seeing 20/40. I'm very pleased with that measurement. Just one day following cataract surgery and I am seeing better than I have in years; better than before the cataract, I think. My doctor describes it as "a home run."

This, then, is my report to you on cataract surgery. I have a few friends considering similar surgery who look to me as a test-case. I can say, so far, that it's not so bad. The worst part was thinking about it before-hand; the idea that someone will cut open your eye is a little freaky.

Sunday night and Monday morning, thinking about it too much, were odd. But once we got to the outpatient surgery center, things went quickly and were well-organized.

I deal with stress over health issues by taking an interest in the technology and the process. I wanted to know what blood pressure reading the nurse got, and I used the beep-beep of the heart monitor to try to play bio-feedback games while she bustled about. We talked about the best places to have an IV inserted as she placed a needle into a vein on my right hand. And when the nurse-anesthetist came in to give me a minor sedative, I tried to gauge the progress of that drug as it took hold.

To be honest, though, at that point I disappeared from the process and only have a few impressions of the procedure itself.

They tell you before the surgery that it will go like this:

1. You get a sedative ("happy juice," someone called it),
2. They put you to sleep for a few minutes so they can hit your eye with a local anesthetic and get it fully numbed out,
3. They wake you up for the procedure (I assume since you eye needs to be open),
4. They brief you and whoever brought you on post-op care and help you into a wheelchair and out the door.

My experienced jumped from sedative going in almost straight to my wife (the Lovely Karen) coming in to pick me up.

I do recall being sort of awake and under a blue cover of some sort around which there was activity and some talking. I could dimly see some eye-doctor-like equipment through the cover (I assume with my left eye). I remember feeling cool water around my eye as they worked. And I think I remember the doctor saying "we're almost done."

But I really wasn't present for all that. And I am fine with that absence. The doctor assured me today (at a follow-up check) that I didn't reveal any deep dark secrets.

The whole thing took about an hour and a half.

When I got home, I felt good enough to take a self-portrait. My eye was under a shield for a few hours. When I took it off, I found I could see well-enough, though through a film of medications, to watch a little TV, but not for long stretches. My eye was a bit sensitive to light and itched a fair amount.

This morning, when I awoke, the itching was largely gone and the sight from that eye is noticeably better. I drove myself to my follow-up appointment (the post-op instructions say you can drive the ext day if you feel up to it and can see well enough, and if you have a valid driver's license).

I do find it is best if I wear the old-guy style full-coverage sunglasses that they gave me when I drive. I assume the light-sensitivity will ease with time.

I do not expect to know just how well this has worked until early January. The doctors say it takes about a month for the eye to settle in and "accept" the new lens. I have an appointment the first Monday of 2011 to find out what my final prescription will be. If any (he wrote, hopefully).

As a side note, I ran into an older couple at the eye doctor office today who remembered me from yesterday. The wife had also had cataract surgery and her husband remembered Karen and I coming in while he waited. We compared notes and found that we had had very similar experiences.

You Can Get Anything You Want....

It's Thanksgiving, a holiday that will always, for me, bring memories of Arlo Guthrie's wonderful song Alice's Restaurant.

This year, a member at the social web site MetaFilter has posted an annotated lyrics of the song, which led me, naturally, to wordle to make a word cloud.

And, as we make our way across the Delaware countryside, through the Eastern shore of Maryland and across the Bay Bridge (to Grandmother's Uncle John's house), I hope to find this song on the radio somewhere.

Because that's just part of the holiday tradition.

Speaking of Rockabilly...

One of the artists I follow on twitter is Roseanne Cash, who led me today to a cool video clip from the 1980s and some of my favorite guitar players.

Here are Carl Perkins, Dave Edmunds,George Harrison, and Eric Clapton, all in a row. Roseanne Cash is the one seated between Clapton and Ringo Starr. This group is playing a medley of some of the fundamental tunes of the rockabilly period.

I dig it.

Panoramas

I've been playing around with the "panorama" mode of my cellphone camera. I only recently discovered it. I had not really taken my little Samsung Rogue seriously as a camera when I first got it. But I've come to rely on it more and more for those "saw something while walking uptown for lunch" pictures.

The panorama mode is tricky and doesn't always work. But when it does, I like the results. It is also the case that, because it is a cellphone and has a low resolution level, these images work best in their smaller forms.

Panoramic miniatures.

At Bethany Blues: A Bo Diddley Beat

The Lovely Karen and I went to Bethany Blues last night to see a group of old friends play rockabilly music last night. The show was part of the on-going Sidney's Music Revival, which has brought a variety of acts, mostly blues, to the barbecue restaurant on Route 1 outside of Lewes.

This band is made up (left to right in the photo) of Barry Eli, retired music teacher from Cape Henlopen High School; Ken Schleifer, an active music teacher; Walt Hetfield, a music teacher and fonder of a rock-n-roll summer camp; and Mike Long, about whom I have to admit I know nothing.

Barry, Ken and Walt are our friends entirely through Karen; from her early days as a music therapist and from her playing in various ensembles around the area over the years.

These guys have been playing together for a while. They are less a bar-band though, and more a show band. They have a Buddy Holly tribute show, the rockabilly show we saw last night, and a "sun and surf" show in which they play music from the mid 1960s.

But that doesn't mean they didn't tear it up in the Bethany Blues bar last night. They drew a sizable crowd and they played loud, hard and sweaty. There was music by Buddy Holly, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent, Link Wray and many others.

I'm an old rockabilly fan. I came of age during the rockabilly revival of the late 1970s in the Washington DC area. My high school band, the Ramblin' Beach Guys, played a bit of this music, and I was a great fan of Tex Rubinowitz and the Bad Boys. And this music is part of the foundation of so much other great music. Without rockabilly, the Beatles wouldn't be the same, nor would the Grateful Dead and many others. They all cut their teeth on what is, after all, simply straight-ahead rock and roll.

This is Cool: Culture Edition

The author Neil Gaiman and the singer Amanda Palmer were "married" on the street in New Orleans recently in a combination flash mob, street-mime performance, and birthday surprise party.

The details are in Amanda Palmer's blog, but my understanding is that the pair were in New Orleans for a concert by her band, The Dresden Dolls, earlier this month on Neil Gaiman's birthday. They have been engaged since last New Year's.

She surprised him with a reprise of her street performance as a bride statue down in the French Quarter and compounded the birthday gift with an ambush wedding party and a ceremony officiated ("By whatever powers might be vested in me by any governing bodies or deities, living dying or dead...") by fellow musician Jason Webley.

Was it really a wedding? Are they now married? I'm not sure. But I think the event itself was pretty cool.

This is Cool: Political Edition

Delaware's present and future Congressional Representatives sat down together on Capitol Hill today. We're a small state, we only get the one.
 

The gent on the left is Mike Castle, the republican who leaves after many years of service to the state. The guy on the right is John Carney, the democrat just elected to replace Mr. Castle. It's worth noting that they weren't running against each other in the recent election. Mr. Castle was a victim of the tea party uprising in the republican party.

According to the News Journal's Dialogue Delaware blog, Mr. Carney wanted to meet with Mr. Castle "first to thank him for his many years of dedicated service to the people of Delaware, and second to gain insight from him on how to effectively represent our state’s best interests in Congress."

On one level, that's the normal sort of platitude you expect from politicians after the elections. But I know both of these men, in a small way, having worked for them in state government over the years. I look at this photo and I see two men who respect each other, in spite of politics, and take their responsibilities seriously.

I think that's cool.

"It Gets Worse, Senator McCain..."

Monday night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart and his staff took Senator John McCain to task for his cynical tactics in opposition to repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell," the dreadfullly stupid law that keeps gays and lesbians from serving in our armed forces. It's a masterful job of reporting and strategic derision.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
It Gets Worse PSA
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

McCain deserves to be mocked on this one. Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a travesty and he's being a jackass about it.

Painting a Railing: A Weekend Odyssey

Paint failure
Originally uploaded by mmahaffie

I finally got around to painting the front door and the new railing we had added to the front stoop. It hasn't gone well.

Painting the door was not the problem. It needed a second coat, but will be fine. The railing, which is clad in white PVC, has been something of an adventure.

This photo is what we found this morning after painting the railing on Saturday afternoon. It wasn't all like this, but a lot was. I think the problem was that I painted too late in the afternoon on Saturday and the temperature fell too much for proper drying.

So. What to do? I toyed with washing the paint off, but that was painful and slow. And, as the day warmed up, I found that the paint was starting to dry.

So I doubled-down and added another coat during the heat of the day today. I imagine it will need more touch-up later, but I hope to get away with it.

This is, by the way, further evidence of why I am really not qualified to own a home.

Late Fall Golf

late fall golf
Originally uploaded by mmahaffie

My golf-buddy Andy and I traveled north about an hour today to play a round of golf at Odessa National Golf Club in New Castle County. It's a course we've been hearing about and wanted to try. We took advantage of the (slightly) warmer weather today to give it a shot.

Odessa National is a tough course, and unforgiving. Neither of us played particularly well. But, we had fun.