When I was a tot, in our neighborhood were paved, but it wasn't the blacktop invariably used today. Instead, it looked like... well, hell, I looked it up, so let's go at this from the other direction. It was tar macadam. Now because later on, people (mainly British ones) also use the same term to refer to blacktop, it got a bit confusing. The roads I grew up with were like peanut brittle made out of gravel. Well, not that flat, but anyway like gravel glued together. This apparently is tar macadam.
I was still a child when the city started resurfacing out neighborhood streets using asphalt. And since I could see bits of gravel in the asphalt, I thought that this was how the tarmac streets had started off. The black stuff just eventually washed away and left just the glued together gravel.
Now I swear that I suggested this explanation to an older person at the time, a sibling or a parent, and they told me that I was right. Perhaps I imagined it; my family took pains to give me correct information about everything in life, and I can't see any reason this would have been the exception. Still, in my heart of hearts, I believed until I looked it up the other day that this was how those glued-together gravel roads were created. Truth to tell, I still believe it.
Looking back, I have no idea why it ever seemed like a good idea to use this surface on residential streets, especially during a baby boom. I certainly remember scraping my knee pretty thoroughly when trying and failing to ride my tricycle down the big hill on Mimosa Road next to our house at age 5. Mind you, asphalt probably wouldn't have been a big improvement. Better on bare feet, though, as I recall.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Sex education in the '70s
An organization that I support asked for video testimonials of experiences with public school sex education in South Carolina. I'm not so well set up for video testimonials, so I figured I'd write it down and give them the link if they're interested.
There isn't really that much to say, and that's probably the very point. I appreciate that people not living here think that we're conspicuously backward, bewildered by horseless carriages, metal birds in the sky and that consarned telegraph. But really, as out of step as we are in many ways, what is really alarming is how IN step we are.
People talk about their sex education classes in the '50s and '60s being very minimal. Usually the boys and girls would be segregated and each gender would watch an 8 mm film about birds and bees. I am getting on in years and it was a long time ago, but what puzzles me is how little I remember. I think the triumph of public school sex education in South Carolina during the '70s was making sex seem uninteresting. Maybe those abstinence-only advocates should take note.
All I remember for sure was that there was a class called Health that was given as a part of gym class during 6th grade, taught by Coach. Coach had gone to State and then washed out with the Minnesota Vikings; meaning no disrespect in any way, I don't think Coach took his formal education too seriously until after the NFL dream evaporated. I don't remember any teaching at all. Forty years along, that doesn't mean that it didn't happen. But I remember Coach teasing Russell and Joel about their braces. In other words, my memory still works; if the classes had had much substance, presumably something would have been retained.
I do remember that there was a Health textbook. Probably we had reading for homework and quizzes in place of actual teaching. I'm pretty sure we did the gender-segregated 8 mm movie thing as well. I don't recall taking anything away from that, either.
Short answer then is that public school sex education in the '70s was very, very minimal. It's a miracle in fact that I ever did learn anything about sex-- oh wait, I didn't.:)
There isn't really that much to say, and that's probably the very point. I appreciate that people not living here think that we're conspicuously backward, bewildered by horseless carriages, metal birds in the sky and that consarned telegraph. But really, as out of step as we are in many ways, what is really alarming is how IN step we are.
People talk about their sex education classes in the '50s and '60s being very minimal. Usually the boys and girls would be segregated and each gender would watch an 8 mm film about birds and bees. I am getting on in years and it was a long time ago, but what puzzles me is how little I remember. I think the triumph of public school sex education in South Carolina during the '70s was making sex seem uninteresting. Maybe those abstinence-only advocates should take note.
All I remember for sure was that there was a class called Health that was given as a part of gym class during 6th grade, taught by Coach. Coach had gone to State and then washed out with the Minnesota Vikings; meaning no disrespect in any way, I don't think Coach took his formal education too seriously until after the NFL dream evaporated. I don't remember any teaching at all. Forty years along, that doesn't mean that it didn't happen. But I remember Coach teasing Russell and Joel about their braces. In other words, my memory still works; if the classes had had much substance, presumably something would have been retained.
I do remember that there was a Health textbook. Probably we had reading for homework and quizzes in place of actual teaching. I'm pretty sure we did the gender-segregated 8 mm movie thing as well. I don't recall taking anything away from that, either.
Short answer then is that public school sex education in the '70s was very, very minimal. It's a miracle in fact that I ever did learn anything about sex-- oh wait, I didn't.:)
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Ch-ch-ch-ch-chia!
To my credit, I saw the fiasco coming at least a mile off. Frankly, I have no idea why it ever seemed like a good idea. My cookies are fantastic. Delicious. Couldn't be better. So of course, I went out and spent a gazillion dollars (well, 16) with the idea of making them so. Well it could still turn out that way.
It's like this: when you give up gluten, you also give up the glue that holds baked goods together. Most people get around this by using xanthan gum. For no considered reason whatever, I just don't want to do this. (Can't pronounce xanthan? Maybe.) So I've been using one egg in my baked goods to hold stuff together to the extent that they need to be. As my baked goods are usually muffins, this extent isn't particularly great.
Sometimes a bit of my batter goes astray on the muffin tin and gets burned up. Really, I'm not a total idiot; I appreciate that burned up stuff doesn't usually taste good. But this batter kind of tastes bad per se, apart from the burnedness. With my last batch I finally figured out what the bad taste was: the sulfur taste from eggs.
So I looked up egg substitutes. The crazy people on the Internet (CPOTI) seemed to feel that chia seeds make a terrific substitute, especially if you're looking for a binder. They bind better than eggs; all you have to do is take one tablespoon of chia seeds and three of water, blend them together and there you are. If you own a blender, you may have already spotted the flaw in the plan. A quarter cup of stuff (they tell me this is equal to 4 tablespoons) won't actually reach the blades. So I put in another tablespoon full of seeds and three of water. Then I could puree and blend.
I should have just divided the result in two and used half. Instead, I spooned out a quarter cup, which after all that pureeing was probably more than half. I forgot to mention that the other ostensible reason for using chia was that it isn't supposed to have any flavor. This may turn out to be true, but the scent was a bit minty. Not unpleasant anyway.
So my spectacular, wonderful, perfect cookies have a new alien ingredient in them. We'll see if they turn out better or worse or not at all. Or if we'll all have little green plants growing on top of our heads.
It's like this: when you give up gluten, you also give up the glue that holds baked goods together. Most people get around this by using xanthan gum. For no considered reason whatever, I just don't want to do this. (Can't pronounce xanthan? Maybe.) So I've been using one egg in my baked goods to hold stuff together to the extent that they need to be. As my baked goods are usually muffins, this extent isn't particularly great.
Sometimes a bit of my batter goes astray on the muffin tin and gets burned up. Really, I'm not a total idiot; I appreciate that burned up stuff doesn't usually taste good. But this batter kind of tastes bad per se, apart from the burnedness. With my last batch I finally figured out what the bad taste was: the sulfur taste from eggs.
So I looked up egg substitutes. The crazy people on the Internet (CPOTI) seemed to feel that chia seeds make a terrific substitute, especially if you're looking for a binder. They bind better than eggs; all you have to do is take one tablespoon of chia seeds and three of water, blend them together and there you are. If you own a blender, you may have already spotted the flaw in the plan. A quarter cup of stuff (they tell me this is equal to 4 tablespoons) won't actually reach the blades. So I put in another tablespoon full of seeds and three of water. Then I could puree and blend.
I should have just divided the result in two and used half. Instead, I spooned out a quarter cup, which after all that pureeing was probably more than half. I forgot to mention that the other ostensible reason for using chia was that it isn't supposed to have any flavor. This may turn out to be true, but the scent was a bit minty. Not unpleasant anyway.
So my spectacular, wonderful, perfect cookies have a new alien ingredient in them. We'll see if they turn out better or worse or not at all. Or if we'll all have little green plants growing on top of our heads.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Supreme allied commander
I dreamed last night that I led an invasion of a small country somewhere very far away. It was also a very small invasion. We all fit in one house. I think the house had one room and one bed. As Supreme Allied Commander, I had the right to hang back at the house while my forces carried out the invasion and took advantage of this right. At some point, a guy who looked like and probably was Colonel Sanders wandered in. I'm not sure if he was in on the invasion or just highly confused, but I let him stay. Eventually, the rest of my troops came back, having had their butts kicked. It was a fairly unarmed, non-violent invasion, apparently. I let Colonel Sanders have the bed and the rest of us just sprawled out on the floor. About half the time, I seem to dream about sleeping. Is this weird or merely mildly ironic? I don't know.
About all I can conclude from my dreams last night is that I want a house. My other dream was that I had one; still small though. This one didn't involve any invasions at least. It lay next to an unpaved road which appeared to lead to a small unpaved bridge. However, when I went to investigate, what had appeared to be a bridge was in fact a gigantic deck overhanging an infinitely beautiful body of water. I DO want THAT house!
About all I can conclude from my dreams last night is that I want a house. My other dream was that I had one; still small though. This one didn't involve any invasions at least. It lay next to an unpaved road which appeared to lead to a small unpaved bridge. However, when I went to investigate, what had appeared to be a bridge was in fact a gigantic deck overhanging an infinitely beautiful body of water. I DO want THAT house!
Sunday, October 27, 2013
I can dance
Long long ago, there was a radio station in Los Angeles called KROQ. (I probably won't mention the call letters again, because my brain helpfully keeps suggesting the letters QSKY instead, due to a movie called "FM." But that's another story.) At that time, around 1980, disco was supreme and it was suggested in some quarters that rock music was dead. This LA station programmed all rock n roll and was wildly successful. This success would lead shortly to MTV, which also reigned supreme for a while, but more significantly it led to the biggest thing to hit radio since payola: I'll call it playlist subscriptions.
First, the LA station sold its playlists to other rock stations across the country. I wasn't in the business and don't know how this worked physically. But even before the Internet, we had typewriters and the US Mail, not to mention teletypes. Judging by what the listener heard, the stations weren't playing literally the same playlists, but rather selections from the same playlists. As the '80s wore on, the same thing happened with other formats, and Adult Contemporary and Classic Rock were born.
The point of all this blithering is that the other day, my friend Mary in Philadelphia posted on Facebook that she had tuned into an oldies station and heard "I Can Dance" by Leo Sayer (which is actually called "Long Tall Glasses," but SHOULD be called "I Can Dance"). Then a couple of days later, listening to an oldies station here, I heard it, too. It reminded me of my travelin' days, when I would range up and down the Eastern seaboard and hear roughly the same songs on every station, even if all those songs were 10 or 20 years removed from their days on the Hot 100. It always amused me, but it is a little weird. And it outlasted MTV's days of dominance by... oh, a little bit.
First, the LA station sold its playlists to other rock stations across the country. I wasn't in the business and don't know how this worked physically. But even before the Internet, we had typewriters and the US Mail, not to mention teletypes. Judging by what the listener heard, the stations weren't playing literally the same playlists, but rather selections from the same playlists. As the '80s wore on, the same thing happened with other formats, and Adult Contemporary and Classic Rock were born.
The point of all this blithering is that the other day, my friend Mary in Philadelphia posted on Facebook that she had tuned into an oldies station and heard "I Can Dance" by Leo Sayer (which is actually called "Long Tall Glasses," but SHOULD be called "I Can Dance"). Then a couple of days later, listening to an oldies station here, I heard it, too. It reminded me of my travelin' days, when I would range up and down the Eastern seaboard and hear roughly the same songs on every station, even if all those songs were 10 or 20 years removed from their days on the Hot 100. It always amused me, but it is a little weird. And it outlasted MTV's days of dominance by... oh, a little bit.
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Ready for our closeups
My friend Paul got an iPhone somewhere around a year ago. I got a Windows phone earlier this year. We both like the cameras on our phones except for one little thing: we couldn't shoot little things. We didn't know how to zoom. We thought that we couldn't zoom. It made us sad.
Last night, Paul told me he thought he had figured out how to do closeups with his phone camera. He was mortified that he hadn't figured it out before. He opened the camera app, put his hand on the screen and, uh, ungrabbed. Balled up his hand, touched the screen and flexed his fingers outwards while still touching the screen. I'm sure that could be better phrased. I'm sure if we had read the effing manuals, we would find it better phrased there. Oh, I tipped the end of the story, didn't I? So I got my phone out, turned on the camera, did exactly the same thing, with exactly the same effect. Bingavast! (One gets so few opportunities to say "Bingavast!") Zoom!
So now, instead of boring my Facebook friends stupid with pictures from far far away or by manufacturing closeups via cropping, I can bore them stupid with actual closeups. Let's get started!
Last night, Paul told me he thought he had figured out how to do closeups with his phone camera. He was mortified that he hadn't figured it out before. He opened the camera app, put his hand on the screen and, uh, ungrabbed. Balled up his hand, touched the screen and flexed his fingers outwards while still touching the screen. I'm sure that could be better phrased. I'm sure if we had read the effing manuals, we would find it better phrased there. Oh, I tipped the end of the story, didn't I? So I got my phone out, turned on the camera, did exactly the same thing, with exactly the same effect. Bingavast! (One gets so few opportunities to say "Bingavast!") Zoom!
So now, instead of boring my Facebook friends stupid with pictures from far far away or by manufacturing closeups via cropping, I can bore them stupid with actual closeups. Let's get started!
Friday, October 25, 2013
Sour grapes
I visited the State Fair three times and never rode any rides. Obviously, if you're feeling sour grapes, the last thing you're going to admit is that you're feeling sour grapes. By definition, what you're going to say is that those grapes were sour anyway. But I have more than a suspicion that they really were sour, at least a bit.
News reports suggest that they might be a little worse than sour. A bunch of people were injured yesterday or the day before at the NC State Fair on a ride called the Vortex, which started up again when they were trying to leave it. (De-ride?)
So yeah, rides built and operated by carnies have a certain level of safety issues, but the selection of thrill rides is also a little odd. Mostly, they take your really really high and spin you around. I'm not the world's biggest fan of either heights or dizziness. For some reason, I have next to no problem with being on the side of a cliff one or two thousand feet in the air with no safety equipment, so long as my feet are in contact with the actual ground. Put me in a harness and throw me a hundred feet in the air and I'm much more alarmed.
I like roller coaster kind of rides; this fair only had one, and it was decidedly mickey mouse. (I think it did have mouse in the name. Google says Crazy Mouse.) Seven years ago, a child was thrown from a roller coaster at our State Fair (then the Mad Mouse), which may be why the coaster is so mild these days.
The only other thing I would have liked to ride was the log flume, but those are ever so much more fun in the summer when getting splashed with water is delightfully cooling. Seems like a trip to Carowinds is in order! For all that they have a lot of throw-you-around new roller coasters, they still have the old ones, and the old log flume, and the lines are a lot shorter. I'll plan on going next summer, and save my sour grapes for the ones with long lines!
News reports suggest that they might be a little worse than sour. A bunch of people were injured yesterday or the day before at the NC State Fair on a ride called the Vortex, which started up again when they were trying to leave it. (De-ride?)
So yeah, rides built and operated by carnies have a certain level of safety issues, but the selection of thrill rides is also a little odd. Mostly, they take your really really high and spin you around. I'm not the world's biggest fan of either heights or dizziness. For some reason, I have next to no problem with being on the side of a cliff one or two thousand feet in the air with no safety equipment, so long as my feet are in contact with the actual ground. Put me in a harness and throw me a hundred feet in the air and I'm much more alarmed.
I like roller coaster kind of rides; this fair only had one, and it was decidedly mickey mouse. (I think it did have mouse in the name. Google says Crazy Mouse.) Seven years ago, a child was thrown from a roller coaster at our State Fair (then the Mad Mouse), which may be why the coaster is so mild these days.
The only other thing I would have liked to ride was the log flume, but those are ever so much more fun in the summer when getting splashed with water is delightfully cooling. Seems like a trip to Carowinds is in order! For all that they have a lot of throw-you-around new roller coasters, they still have the old ones, and the old log flume, and the lines are a lot shorter. I'll plan on going next summer, and save my sour grapes for the ones with long lines!
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