Eclectic Amateur

Abuse of Language, #3428193

I made the mistake of reading the ingredients list on the package of Hain’s corn cakes that we were snacking on. Now, I like Hain’s food — it tastes good, it’s organic, etc.

The snack in question was caramel corn cakes (rice-cake-like things, except made out of corn and sweet). The second or third ingredient was listed as “dehydrated cane juice.”

In English, that’s known as sugar.

Am I surprised? Not by the fact that something with caramel has (gasp, shock) sugar lurking within. I know how caramel is made. I’ve made it myself. I expect to see “sugar” on the ingredients list.

What I didn’t expect was the attempt at duplicity. I suppose someone in marketing thought it’d be a bad idea for a snack posing as healthy to have the word “sugar” prominent in the ingredients. So, they are, in effect, trying to lie about what is in their snack (oh, within the limits of the law, I’m sure).

Ptui.

Roy Jacobsen finds ethnic Hobbit food on the web. I want to see that cookbook …

“You guys seem pretty literary for engineers.”

101 Dumbest Moments in Business

Looking back at the Oscars …

I am not the perpetrator of this (hi Mick!):

I will take this small golden statue, Oscar, and keep

it an as heirloom of my House and the heirs of my

body forever. It is precious to me, though I buy it

with great pain, of all the works of Hollywood the only fair.

When first I took it, the statue was hot with the heat

of its master, and it burned me like a klieg light so that

I think I shall never be free of the pain of it. Now it cools,

and the fiery words around its base begin to fade: “Best

Supporting Actor…”

Via Amy Welborn — Amish and Mennonites move to Western NY because of cheap land.

$270 / acre !!!! That is so unbelievable. Farming mgiht almost be affordable at that price. Last I checked, the “”farming value” of midwest acreage was about $1,800-$2,000. Sadly, this is not what you can actually buy farmland for in this area.

Good thing food comes from trucks and from grocery stores, right?

Here is something I wrote in the immediate aftermath:

An Ordinary Week

(looking back on September 11, 2001)


Thank you, God, for an ordinary week.


While there were reports of terror and death
  all around me, you have given me the gift
  of an ordinary week.


I went to work and did my job.  There was satisfaction
  and frustration and politics and camaraderie.

I came home to my family.  Some joy, some tedium,
  some being driven crazy by each other.  You know
  how families can be.

I helped with the dishes, did some work around
  the house, folded the laundry.

The kids, in between being wonderful, challenged
  and frustrated us.  They even needed
  some disciplining.

I wondered how I was going to get all the bills
  taken care of.

My wife smiled at me.

We fought a little bit, but nothing that didn't
  pass and leave the love behind.

I went to church on Sunday and worshiped,
  distracted by the squirming and questioning
  of lively children.

It was an ordinary week.

We had a little bit out of the ordinary.  Josh
  was upset because we didn't get a newspaper.
  He likes the weather maps.

But the front page wouldn't have been ordinary,
  and he's such a sensitive child.

He won't even pray his "special prayers" at night,
  because he didn't want to speak what he'd heard
  about New York and Washington, D.C.
  even to God.

David will pray about it.  He prays every night
  for the airplanes and the buildings and the firefighters
  and that the planes will get down safely.
  I never have the heart to tell him
  that they won't.

My wife and I are in disbelief, and a little shock,
  that a building where we spent a week together
  is now a pile of rubble.

We hold each other a little tighter.

And we were relieved to find that our friend
  who lives and works around the Beltway
  had his flight on the ground a few hours
  before the terror began.

So it was not entirely ordinary.

But I am only an ordinary man
  with the ordinary responsibilities of life.

I had no terror of waiting for the awful call
  (or worse, no call at all)
  regarding loved ones in the wrong building.

I had no responsibility for coworkers in flight
  or where they might be stranded
  if the planes were still in the air at all.

I had no position of ministry
  where the grieving and questioning would come
  and ask the unanswerable.

I had no position of public office
  where more wisdom than can be humanly borne
  is demanded.

I am only an ordinary man
  experiencing an ordinary week.

Thank you, Lord, for this most precious treasure
  of an ordinary week.

Job Change — AGAIN

Today was my last day at ProQuest. Looks like I’m done with web sites and back to the world of embedded software again. This is exciting; I get to go back to the world of “when men were men and wrote their own device drivers.”

Angel Update

We have a new breeding pair! Not that it will do any good yet …

Background: the spawning/rearing tank was getting far too gross with algae, and we were getting no success. So, my last brilliant idea was to place our pair back into the main tank, with the other four angels we have. Two are a purchased pair of white blushing angels, and the other two ar e we saved from the sucessful spawn we had earlier this year, one silver and one marble.

So, today we have new angel eggs — no surprise, Mom and Dad spawned not that long ago. But on closer look, our silver female laying the eggs was our second generation silver, not our original Momma. I guess we have that one sexed now.

Guess I’d better get busy on cleaning and restarting that other tank. 🙂

“Mommy, you’re the best homeschool mommy in the world!”

— David, today.

Today was the first day of formal homeschooling for the year. I guess the kids are excited. 🙂

And it was wonderful going to the Project Grow potluck/meeting tonight and being told how happy and relaxed our kids seemed to be. Not that we’re doing this for public affirmation, but it’s great to hear some positive feedback once in a while.