Let's play "Guess the Counter Material"

OK kids, here's a bit of a challenge. What follow are nine photographs of new kitchens in a variety of styles. Each photograph has a letter and the challenge is to identify the counter material used in each kitchen. There's no prize on the line other than the satisfaction of being right, should you get any of them right. Here goes:

A.

B.

C.

D.

E.

F.

G.

H.

I.

So let's see how everybody does. Leave your best guesses in the comments and I'll write a follow up later with the answers.

My obituary in 208 words, a Blog Off Post

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The Blog Off this round came about by popular vote and it's based on a human resources exercise where people write their own obituaries as an exercise in answering the question "Who are you?"

A traditional newspaper obituary is 208 words or less so we're honoring that old convention to keep things brief.

It may come across as macabre but I don't think it is in the least. Life's short and denying that needling truth does nobody any favors. So without any further ado, here's my obituary. I'm leaving off the dates to heighten the mystery. Yeah right.

Paul Anater died. He hated flowery terms meant to disguise the finality of death so we'll say that he died. Expressions like "passed on" and "passed over" got on his nerves but the inane "passed" sent him into fits of apoplexy. "Passed what?" he would bark. "Passed the bar? Passed the idiot in the right lane? Call things what they are." Oh that Paul.

He had little patience for public self-analysis and was smart enough to know that the term for it was omphaloskepsis.  He was also smart enough to know that it came from the Greek for "navel gazing." He found other peoples' omphaloskepsis to be self-indulgent and listening to it to be tedious. He spent inordinate amounts of time engaging in it himself of course, but he kept such things private.

Underneath his crotchety exterior he was someone who understood the difference between a thought and a feeling and the wondrous nature of each. He could be imperious and demanding but never thought twice about stopping to answer a question or praise an effort. He loved deeply and was loved just as deeply. No matter what else he did or didn't do, he knew they were the only things that really mattered.

So there you have it a Blog Off obituary in 206 words to be precise. That was a fun exercise. Really. What would you want to appear as your obituary? If something like that ran in The Times I'd be thrilled despite being too dead to appreciate it fully. More than anything it said, I'd be thrilled just to show up in The Times. Hah!

As the day goes on, the rest of the participants in today's Blog Off will appear miraculously at the end of this post. Keep checking back and check out everybody's obits. You can follow along in Twitter as well, just look for the hashtag #LetsBlogOff. If you'd like more information about about the Blog Off or if you'd like to see the results of previous Blog Offs, you can find the main website here.

A Cracker Jack Hack

I took that photo on my patio yesterday morning before tucking into what looks suspiciously like a bowl of Cracker Jack. It's not quite the Cracker Jack I remember but it's something far, far better.

I had two wildly inconvenient dental procedures last month and after my last one, my dentist warned me not to eat popcorn until my gums healed. Not a problem because I never eat popcorn. I never eat it that is until a dentist tells me not to.

The surest way to get me to do something is to tell me I can't do something. My dentist's warning about popcorn gave rise to something deep inside of me and I was seized with a craving for not just popcorn but a very special kind of popcorn and something I hadn't eaten since I was around 12.

I became consumed with a craving for Cracker Jack so profound I lack words to describe it accurately. It kept me awake at night and when I couldn't stand it any longer I gave in and sped off to the grocery store. To my profound horror, Publix doesn't sell the stuff and if Publix doesn't sell it it may as well not exist.

Undaunted, I came home and turned to the internet for caramel corn recipes. As a point of order; that word, caramel, is pronounced kar-mel. Pronouncing it with the second A marks you as someone from the west coast. The horror!

Anyhow, I adapted a recipe I found on Recipes.com and I cranked out a king's ransom in Cracker Jack Hack. Let's look at my glorious effort again:

Here's what to do.

• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 cup corn syrup
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 5 quarts popped popcorn
• A mess of peanuts

Preheat oven to 250 degrees F. Place popcorn in a very large bowl.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Stir in brown sugar, corn syrup and salt. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil without stirring 4 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in soda and vanilla. Pour in a thin stream over popcorn, stirring to coat.

Place in two large shallow baking dishes and bake in preheated oven, stirring every 15 minutes, for 1 hour. Remove from oven and let cool completely before breaking into pieces.

That seems really cut and dry but believe me, this is one of the messiest things I've ever made in my life. I took some liberties with the original recipe by adding more salt and a lot of peanuts. I think the added salt makes the sweetness less cloying and the peanuts are what make Cracker Jack Cracker Jack.

Craving sated, I can now concentrate on concealing the evidence from my dentist at my follow up appointment this week.

As fantastic as this stuff is, I made enough that I ate my fill on the first day and now I have great bags of the stuff sitting around. The next time I make this I'll split the recipe in half. As a side note, the caramel it makes is fantastic in its own right. It cools to the consistency and taste of a Sugar Daddy, another old friend from childhood. As wonderful as this fix was, it was still missing one key element.

Alas, I had no cheap ring or booklet of cheesey tattoos with which to while away my sugar-fueled afternoon.

It's 2011 and I'm back

I'm back after a hiatus that took a little longer to get out of my system than I thought it would. After posting daily for two-and-a-half years I thought it was high time for a bit of a break. I needed to prove to myself that the world wouldn't end if I took off for a little bit. Obviously, the world didn't end.

I'm going to go back to blogging daily so long as the spirit's moving me to do so and when I don't feel like writing a blog post I'm not going to. That's one of my New Year's goals for this year. It's also a survival scheme. I have a travel schedule coming up that makes my head spin if I think about it too much (four major trade shows! Eight cities! Four countries! Three-and-a-half weeks!). Blogging every day while all that's going on is not something I'm willing to take on. I'll be checking in form my exotic ports of call on a very regular basis of course, and there will be times when this blog goes blank for a day or two while I'm traveling. Bear with me.

Being away reminded me that I love this blog more than just about anything and it also reminded me of the difference between a commitment and an obligation. Thanks for sticking around gang.

Happy new year video

I'm not quite back yet but I like this video.




Local, aspiring filmmaker Kyle Kien makes videos of life in these parts and I like them. Here's his time lapse review of holiday stuff from Thanksgiving 'til last night's fireworks. You may need to be from here to appreciate his work but I think he captures enough humanity to make the appeal pretty universal. In any case, his videos remind me why I like living here. It's been getting harder and harder to remember those reasons lately so thanks Kyle.