Category: Life

I wanted a piece in my stationery arsenal to bridge the gap between business cards and note cards. I get asked a lot at social events what my site was called again? How do you spell “Lyza”? It is my hope that these new cards give an idea of what interests me and how to find me.

In the end, I have about 50 first-rate cards and about 100 acceptable ones. I considered numbering the run of 50, but that seemed a touch pompous. Want one?

An impulsive campfire at Pencilhaven. Picture this from last night: a close dampness, later turning to a petulant drizzle; trying to keep the enthusiastic dog from wagging through the flames; a headlamp that was dying, dying, dying and; trying to read in this dying light from book of Roald Dahl short stories. I wrapped myself up in a blanket and tried to stay out of the wretched smoke. Oh, and some intriguing white wine from Argentina.

Every two months I am supposed to spend half a day in the St. Vincent Cancer Center with an IV in my (now scarred and elusive) vein while my circulatory system sucks down Remicade, a drug of a class called “biologics,” which, despite having been on the market for 11 years, is still in patent. Remicade costs $4450. Per dose. Add to that a sundry six or seven hundred bucks for the privilege of hanging out in the hospital for four hours, and—this is not a cheap situation.

The more I start learning about Italy’s wines, the more I feel that regionalism and obscurity often defines the country’s offerings. That is, almost nothing is a single, consistent hallmark. Last week, at a “Wine 202″ class at Red Slate Wine, I tasted an Italian red so peculiar as to be compelling. And its existence makes me feel once again overwhelmed at the task I’ve set myself in 2010: learning about Italian wine.

During a recent trip to central California I learned several key life lessons: Nissan Versas are staggeringly dull, things like to fall over when blown on with 60MPH winds, Hoizon’s CRJ-700s can land in essentially zero visibility, and the OLCC will let you drink awfully early at the PDX airport as long as you can cough up a boarding pass.

What some are terming the “storm of the century” has made landfall on the Central Coast of California. Yesterday it was rainy and moody out in wine country, but today it is bucketing. We have to drive five hours to Sacramento shortly. I am hoping this will be an adventure and not just grief!

As mentioned in my post on phenology, I’ve been considering cycles lately. Seasons. Rotations. Circles. Calendars. Orbits. In the next while, perhaps a month or so, I’ll be highlighting content that carries this theme.

You can do so many things with this dough that it’s almost not funny. I’ve memorized this recipe because it’s just that useful. Four quick ingredients turn into a stupidly large array of possibilities. My recipes here cover pizza and bagel derivatives, but I imagine that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Photo by Dalboz17

A photo from 1939 or 1940 shows my paternal grandfather inexplicably smoking a pipe, leaning out of a window of a rather decrepit clapboard house (through lace curtains), and simultaneously typing on what might be an Underwood typewriter. He was also a rocket scientist. True story.

It only took me eight months to redesign my Web site. Only eight months. But I’d like to tell you about it. Because it took me eight months.

But I didn’t just do it for the thrill of getting myself dirty in WordPress code. There is a point, and a goal.