July 2008 Archives

As noted in the colophon, Pie Bee is powered by Movable Type 3.17 I have not fashioned myself as a power user, but a feature to future-post caught my eye. This is being written on Wednesday evening. I will set it to auto-magically post tomorrow around 6 PM.

Needing a question answered to set this up, I went to the help desk of this site's ISP: 2mhost. The ticket got submitted and soon answered, with the reply being signed Lamia. Hmm, that doesn't sound like a good ol' American name, maybe support is out-sourced? Being curious, a google on [ lamia ] came back with this nugget from Encyclopedia Mythica:

The ancient Greeks believed that the Lamia was a vampire who stole little children to drink their blood.

'K Just how far has out-sourcing gone?

Wednesday, July 23rd. Almost caught up now.

It was agreed all around that it was a really bad idea for me to go out to play in this year's BUDA Good Cause hat tournament. I have been sidelined pretty much since February after I rolled an ankle playing Thursday night hoops. And the weather forecast called for humid weather in the 90s. But maybe this is all for the best as these disinclinations ensured I would not even think of attempting any over-exertion.

And that's the way it turned out: four games played without undo wear and tear. As a hat tournament, we were paired up by the crack tournament organizers, seen in the pictures below. I was paired as co-captain with Buzz (not pictured) a teammate from some past BUDA hat league season.

Good Cause was very well run and raised over $10,000 for this year's cause. Harpoon Brewery was the major corporate sponsor and provided some incentives for the top money-raisers. Think of Harpoon next time you are at the packy.

Wondering what Skippy is chugging there after the day was over? It is a jar of pickle (dill) juice. In some Ultimate circles, it is believed dill pickles are just the thing to keep you hydrated and electrolyted through a long day on the fields. Maybe they just make you thirsty enough to drink more water? I dunno.

Tuesday, July 22nd. Catching up, again.

Grandpa has been on the spot for a bit now to post some pixels of our visit to the Old Res'. Josie, Jordi, Jen, Karen, and I went late afternoon on the twelfth to Lexington's little pond.

The pond is small enough to be warmed to a pleasant temperature, even after the rain we have seen here recently. Still, Josie isn't all that sure what we are getting her into. That is a strange sensation, having your legs dipped into something, well, wet. But it turns out not to be so bad, and everyone else is enjoying the moment. The dip was followed by a nap on the beach under the sun-tent. Ah, summertime.

Monday, July 21st. There is a little catch up work to here on Pie Bee Blog. I will back-date this posting to match when the photo was taken. This and a couple more to come in the next couple of days.

Almost a couple of weeks ago now, we had house guests: Sheila, Bob, Dan, and Mister. This was their first glimpse of Josephine, and they seemed suitably impressed. Who needs pie when you have a fresh baby in the house?

Fourth of July, for us, means an invitation from Dave and Trish for a swim and a cookout at their place on Foster's Pond. The weather was, and has been, blah. Cloudy and threatening, and many days delivering, some thunder showers. No rain on the 4th, but it did scare off anyone from swimming.

We arrived late, too late for Steve's allergic reaction excitement. Dave fired up some more coals on the barbecue for grilling our sausages. Pleasant conversation and just general hanging out filled the evening.

For dessert, I made and brought a shoo fly pie. Curiosity about the etymology of "shoo fly pie" led to a session with google and digression to other "make do with what is on hand" recipes: vinegar pie and funeral pie.

The recipe was taken again from the Killer Pies book. The generic crust recipe at the front called for 2 cups of flour for a single crust pie. Maybe that is a misprint, unless you like a really thick, thick crust.