Museum of Natural History

Because he worked last Sunday, Russ took today off from work. With all this free time, we decided to go on a little adventure to NYC. We've been wanting to visit the Hayden Planetarium for a while, and this was the perfect opportunity. It's convenient that the planetarium is attached to the Museum of Natural History, so we had plenty to do and see after finishing the space show.

When we got to the museum, we had about an hour's wait before the space show began. To kill some time, we wandered around to the different exhibits, one of our favorites being this model of the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. It's pretty amazing they are both still operational after exploring the Martian landscape for more than a year now! We also weighed ourselves on some different planets, the sun and I think one or two other celestial objects. On Mercury, I only weight 26 pounds. Or was it the Moon? I can't remember...

Although I've been to the Hayden Planetarium before, this was the first time I've ever seen the space show. I kind of have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, there really wasn't much to it - definitely geared towards the lowest common denominator as far as the material it covered is concerned. But the night sky they created inside the giant sphere was beautiful, with an incredible amount of stars. It reminded me of when I visited Moloka`i with Rebecca last summer. The first night, I couldn't sleep, so at 1:30 a.m. I took a little walk down to the beach. The sky was clear and absolutely amazing with the cloudy band of the Milky Way right overhead, extending down to the island of Lana`i. The only reason the planetarium's display of stars looked better was because there were no annoying hotel lights impeding my night vision. To hear Russ's comments on the Hayden Planetarium space show, click on his face. :)

At the conclusion of the space show, the planetarium staff let us out of the sphere, which leaves you on a mezzanine level where you can walk around the sphere and look at displays that illustrate size comparisons that begin with the size of the entire known universe all the way down to quarks. In this picture, if the Hayden sphere (the grid in the background is but a small portion of it) represents the size of the sun, then the relative size of Jupiter and Saturn would be that of their respective models hanging high above Russ's head.

Near the other end of the size spectrum, if the Hayden sphere represents the size of a Rhinovirus, then this black and white bulbous thingy would the be relative size of a fart... er... methane molecule! (At least I think that was the comparison... sorry can't remember exactly... maybe should have taken notes!)

After finishing the size comparisons floor, we watched the little movie they play in the bottom half of the sphere about the Big Bang. When that's over, they let you out into the ramp that spirals around the sphere to the ground floor. All along the spiral, they have a timeline that shows major developmental cosmic events, starting 13 billion years ago to the present. At about 8 billion years ago, we got hungry, so we stepped up our time traveling pace and found our way to the food court.

Yes, we - well, I - was too lazy to leave the museum to find better food. Surprisingly, the food was not as expensive as we expected, but still expensive. And all junk I might add! Don't get me wrong, it tasted ok, just was not very good for us. :)

As I'm sure you can imagine, the Museum of Natural History is just way too big to take in all in one day. So we decided that the parts we wanted to see the most were the mineral sections and the dinosaurs. We also managed to take in the biodiversity section and I guess it was mammals of the northern hemisphere or something like that. Oh, and the fishie section too! That's where I met my friend Puff (I named him that, not the museum). He's not a good fish to eat, because the poison inside him would kill you. As you can see, Puff and I played together with Photoshop for a little while.

We found this example of opal in the mineral section of the museum (another photo you can tell I doctored up a bit). I didn't notice till I was doctoring it up that it almost looks as if someone etched a picture of a person doing Tai Chi into the rock. Oh c'mon, use your imagination! :P

This picture here is proof that Russ and I were at the museum together!


We were trying to get a photo of us together with the head of the triceratops in the background, but I guess our plan didn't really work out. But at least you almost can't tell that I'm the one holding the camera. :D

Because our first triceratops picture didn't work out, Russ took a picture of me posing with it. I was trying to give triceratops bunny ears, but instead it looks more like I'm trying to pick his nose. Incidentally, scientists now think that triceratops had those three horns less for protection against predators, and more as anchors to support muscles used for chewing. Whatever the reason for the horns, triceratops was one of my favorite dionsaurs when I was a little kid.

And here's Russ, reading about my other favorite dinosaur - Steggy! I like how the Museum of Natural History displays a model of the whole dinosaur alongside its skeleton, posed in the same manner. Although there are some exhibits, like the stegosaurus one, where scientists have two differnt theories about how a particular dinosaur would stand, so they use the skeleton and the model to demonstrate both positions.

And probably the most amazing thing I learned at the Museum of Natural History is that in way way way way way way way way way way way-back time, there were flying turtles! Just look at this guy! I swear he was at least 20 - 25 feet off the ground! Who wouldda thunk? ;)

The dinosaurs and the ancient sea critters were the last of the very many exhibits we went to see today. Tired, feet hurting, and heads full of all kinds of groovy information that we are (well at least I am) unlikely to retain, we made our way out of the museum, saving its other great halls of natural history for another visit. Natural history as well as human history... somebody please tell me why there are whole halls of African and Asian (and probably other) cultural artifacts in the Museum of Natural History when they seem like they belong in a different museum? Not that I really care... just wondering if this is born of some PC-ness?


Anyway... The End!

My First Flash Movie :)

The last couple of days I've been playing with Illustrator and Flash. I made a little mooovie. :) Um, it's not set to loop because that would be annoying. If you missed the action, refresh the page. ;)

Mission Impossible, Day 2

Disregarding what seems to be conventional wisdom when it comes to potty-training cats, I decided to take my kitties to the next step in the process. The web sites I read on the subject suggest giving the kitties a few days or a week to get used to each step. However, Spammy and Musubi seem to take to change fairly well, so this morning I thought we'd move the litterbox on top of the toilet. Plus, I didn't want them to get too used to drinking the toilet water!

Spammy and Musubi appear to be taking well to the litterbox's new elevation. I also gave them a little stepping stool to help them climb in and out of it comfortably.

For this step, I think I will stick with conventional wisdom, and give the kitties a few days to get used to climbing up to go potty. :)

Mission Impossible? (a.k.a. yet another cat post...)

Yesterday morning we noticed that Spammy's ears looked pink, and they felt warm, at least compared to Musubi's. But he was acting normal, so we didn't think too much about it.

Today I had a little time so I tried researching on the web about cats having warm ears, to see if it's a symptom of anything (his ears aren't warm anymore though). Anyway, I didn't find anything, but I did come across a funny site for cats called Catster.com. No, I didn't sign Spammy or Musubi up for a Catster account! However, I did look around for a while, and found a Catster forum thread about potty training your kitty. So that inspired me to give it a try, and blog our progress haha!

Day 1

It just so happens that our cellar has a little toilet room in it (no sink, just a toilet). How handy is that for potty training your cats? So today, we moved kitties' litterbox from its usual spot in the cellar to a space right beside said toilet. If you look carefully, you can see that one kitty has already taken to the litterbox's new location, while the other kitty has taken to drinking from the toilet! (For those of you who don't already realize this, you can click on the picture to see a larger version of it.)

I hope they don't decide they can't go potty in that toilet because they'd rather drink out of it. To be continued...

Spam Torture

So I mentioned in a previous post that little Spammy got ringworm. We think he got it from the shelter, because on the day we picked him up, there was a cat there in a quarantine cage that had the fungus. I guess it took a while before Spammy became symptomatic. Fortunatley Musubi seems to be resistant, as well as Russ and me!

Although it's been several weeks since we began treating Spammy for ringworm, the vet says we still need to give him baths two times a week, for at least a couple weeks after the signs of ringworm have all gone away.

So like the good little cat-mommy I am, I thought I'd embarrass poor Spammy by sharing his misery with the whole world, or at least the small sliver of it that bothers to read my blog. Poor li'l guy hates hates hates getting a bath, but when all is said and done, he still loves me afterwards, as you can see from this photo where he's helping me play puzzle just a few hours later. :)

Alicia and Mash in NYC!

Today I got to play with Alicia, who is back on the east coast visiting her family for the holidays. She's in Manattan because her sister lives there, so today I took the train in and we had a nice brunch together at Norma's. Here we are in front of the guy holding up the world by Rockerfeller Center:


After brunch, we wandered back to the train station, and along the way we happened upon someplace special for our friend, Ricksta:

Bunny ears by Alicia. =)

Spamfish

Spam and Musubi got a present for Christmas this morning. They are fish filled with catnip! Spammy went crazy over them, and did his best to open the package himself. Then he just went nuts with them for the rest of the morning. :) Spammy and Musubi say thanks for all the fish!

Waiting Up for Santa

It's the wee hours of Christmas morning, and I am waiting up to see Santa drop by.

Ok, the real story is that Russ has to work an overnight shift from midnight till 8:00 a.m., and I'm trying to stay awake for as much of that shift as I can, so that the two of us can have the same amount of sleepiness later on today.

Because Russ has to work this crazy shift, and I have to work at Crate & Barrel tomrorow, we are unable to make it up to Massachusetts to spend Christmas with my folks. So that's kind of a bummer.

Anyway, the agenda for these wee hours has included doing some laundry (already on the second of three loads), and giving Spammy a bath. We just finished the bath I gave him (this is part of his ringworm treatment), and now he's sitting beside me on the couch, taking his own post-bath bath. He's actually sitting in the crumpled up towel I used to help dry him off, which is on top of Musubi, who I think is letting him sit on top of her for moral support. It's cute how she always looks after him, even though he always tries to beat her up when they play.

In a few minutes, I'm going to go to the car and get out the last of the gifts I picked up for Russ today - I've been hiding it in the trunk. This afternoon, I stopped by Crate & Barrel and dropped off a bunch of cookies and scones for the folks that had to work today. While I was at the mall, I also went to the Walking Company and picked up a pair of nice warm slippers for Russ - one of the things he specifically mentioned that he wanted for Christmas. They are real slippers - not Hawaii-kine slippahs that mainlanders call flip-flops. The other day I also picked up a tool chest for Russ's power tools, since I stole the big bucket he was using to store them because we needed it to hold our empty containers for recycling. And the last thing I got him was a gift certificate for a one-hour massage. I'd better hold off on publishing this post till after Russ comes home, just in case he's bored at work, and decides to read my blog, which I kind of doubt he'll do, but better to be safe, heh.

I also have a movie to watch - Man on the Train. It has subtitles, so I have to pay attention if I want to know what's going on!

But for now, some pictures of our first Christmas living in New Jersey:

This evening... well I guess it was last evening already... we drove into NYC just to visit the big Christmas tree in Rockerfeller Center. Russ played toursit snapping pictures out the window of the car while I drove. :)

Along our way wading through the crowd to get to Rockerfeller Center, we saw a giant snowstorm, with giant snowflakes! :D

As you can see, we accomplished our goal. :) Here's the big tree.

And here are the skaters!

Russ watching the big TV outside the window at the NBC store.

And we passed Radio City Music Hall along our way back to the car.

We tried to take a picture of ourselves with Radio City Music Hall in the background, but I guess that didn't work out very well.

Ok, I'm finally finishing up this post at 3:45 a.m. I'm getting pretty tired, but I'm still going to try to watch the movie I rented. I want to try to make it till at least 6:00 a.m. before I go to sleep. We'll see!

Shave-butt

Russ took this picture just a few minutes ago. You can't even tell that Spammy's butt's been shaved. =)

Too Busy!

How did it get to be December 17th already? I dunno - just not enough hours in the day.

This past week, my brother mostly moved his things into our house. We have a bunch of his stuff in the cellar, and then a bunch more of his stuff in the attic, where he will be staying. In addition to his stuff, we also have his 15-year old cat, Sweetie. I'm afraid Sweetie isn't as sweet as Spammy and Musubi. He plays games like the cat we had when I was growing up. Beege would act all happy, purring, rubing against you - then she'd flop over on the floor, and roll on her back, making like she wants you to pet her tummy. But really that was just an invitation for her to saw your arm off with her claws and teeth. At least Sweetie doesn't have any front claws, so I still have my arm.

We also have my brother's mattress in the downstairs, standing on its end, halfway in the front hall and the other half in the living room. Spammy and Musubi LOVE it. They think it's their indoor tree, racing right up to the top of it every chance they get. Unless I'm not around, Spammy prefers to get off from the top by having me stand right next to the mattress so he can step onto my head and shoulder before jumping off onto the couch.

So anyway, between my brother moving in on Tuesday and me baking a million billion evil goodness cookies to send to my Hawaii friends, I didn't manage to get anything else done that day. We've also been busy wrapping and sending gifts, and I designed and assembled Christmas cards, and both Russ and I wrote messages in them and sent. And business at Crate & Barrel of course is picking up to a nice frenzied pace.

And I still have some Christmas shopping to do - haven't gotten anything for Russ yet! But since I just got home from work, time for sleep.

zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Made it to the Vet After All...

This morning while Russ and I shovelled the driveway and sidewalk, the sun began to come out. So I kept my appointment for Spammy to visit the vet. Good thing too, because it turns out that in addition to runny eyes an nose, the little guy has ringworm! Ewww! As part of his treatment today, Spammy had the pleasure of being traumatized by an anti-fungal bath and blow-dry. When the vet's assistant brought him out to the waiting room afterwards, Spammy's feelings were very conflicted - he couldn't decide whether he wanted to shake from being scared by the bath, or purr because I was holding him again. So when he looked at me, he purred. When he looked away from me, he stopped purring and shook.

So now Spammy is on three different medications, and I have to bring Musubi in next week to get her checked out for ringworm, too. She's not showing any symptoms of anything though, so hopefully she's ok...

And Let It Snow Some More...

See today I think it snowed because I scheduled an appointment for Spammy to visit the vet. His eyes are runny and he's sneezy. But perhaps we will reschedule since it's snowing pretty hard and no signs of stopping anytime soon...

Weird Random Song Lyric

If diseases go together like a road with bumps
Then I got the measles and you got the mumps

I heard this on XM Radio's 50's channel last week while I was driving in the car. Was part of some love song. I have no idea who it's by, but I thought it was so hilarious I had to write it down before I forgot it.

And I did forget it. And I forgot that I wrote it down - at least until just now when I came across that piece of paper.

Ok, I just looked up those lyrics - they are from Jackie Wilson's To Be Loved. According to several web sites, it seems I heard it wrong:

If they says it goes together like a road with bumps
Then I got the measles and you got the mumps

Bah, it was more funny the way I heard it. Still, including diseases in a love song kind of tickles me. :P

First Snow

This was the view we woke up to this morning at 7:30 a.m. Well... actually it's the view from our bedroom window at about 1:00 p.m. - so some of the snow we first saw had already melted before I took the photo.

Figures the day it decides to finally snow here is the same morning that I wanted to get up early and go get some holiday shopping done. The reason I wanted to go on this day in particular is because I've taken a seasonal job with Crate & Barrel, and this morning they opened up the store early for employees only, so we could do some holiday shopping while the store was not busy with real shoppers.

But we didn't let the snow daunt us - we got up, shovelled the snow off our driveway and sidewalk, brushed off the car and went. I've made many trips between Hartford and central Massachusetts in much worse weather than this - I figured we could manage the five or so miles from home to the Short Hills Mall.

So that was our excitement for the day. My first drive on snowy, slick roads in almost six years. We're not dead or injured, the car doesn't have any additional scratches on it, and the all-season tires maybe actually are all-season, not just all-Hawaii-season tires. ;)

Charlie Brown Tree Part II

Now that our tiny little tree is decorated, I thought I'd share a photo of it. Maybe it should be called the Hunchback of Notre Dame tree instead. We pretty much made all of the ornaments on it ourselves. One of my favorites is the happy little plate of spaghetti Russ made a couple of years ago. :)

Anyway, we had to move the little stockings to an out-of-reach-from-the-kitties place... earlier today they almost destroyed one of them. Oi!

Sleepin' Kitties

Because I had a request for more kitty photos. I took this yesterday:

Housework

Sometimes it's a wonder I get anything done, at least when it comes to housework. For example, I just finished eating lunch, so the very next thing I did was wash dishes. Midway through my task, I washed the pot that I usually boil water in for making iced tea. Remembering that I wanted to make some more, I stopped what I was doing, filled the pot with water, put it on the stove and put some tea in it.

That's not too bad - only one interruption, after which I finished washing the dishes and putting them away.

After finishing with the dishes, I noticed that crumbs and drips needed to be wiped off the countertops. So I grabbed a paper towel and was about to get the 409 out when I noticed that the random plumbing and electrician parts that have been sitting on the counter for weeks were still there. Since they apparently weren't going to find a place to belong on their own, I took them downstairs to the cellar.

Once in the cellar, the washing machine finished it's cycle, so I moved the wet clothes to the dryer, and started another batch of dirty clothes in the washer.

That done, I went back upstairs. On the other counter I saw the plastic bag that I had taken from the floor of our bedroom earlier in the mornign and placed on the counter so that later I would remember to clean out the cats' litter box. Well, I guess this was as good a time as any, since the bag would have to go somewhere else before I could clean that countertop anyway.

I finished cleaning the catbox, and looking down at the floor, I noticed that the kitties had managed to track quite a bit of cat litter on it, even though I had just swept yesterday. So I got out the dust pan and brush and cleaned up the floor surrounding the litter box.

Heading back into the kitchen to clean those counters, I noticed that the tea was boiling and ready to be poured over ice. So I got out the pitcher, filled it with ice, poured the tea, cleaned the pot and lid, sliced and squeezed a lemon into the ice tea, and put it away.

So, is it time to wipe down the counters yet? Nope, not quite. Next I noticed the accumulating pile of recyclable containers gathering next to the dish rack. So I gathered those all together and put them out on the back entryway, with the help of little Spammy of course, who took it upon himself to chase a fly he found out there.

Ok, so I finally got around to wiping the counters down. And guess what? Now it's time to flip the laundry again! :P

Hike in South Mountain Reservation

On Sunday, Russ and I went on a little hike with a couple of people from the group I've been hiking with lately, Tereasa and Karen. The place we chose to hike in is very nearby. I'm told South Mountain Reservation has miles of trails, but the four of us decided we only wanted to do a short hike, maybe three or four miles. So we chose the orange trail - a short loop.

Either the beginning of the trail (well, where we started anyway) was not marked very well, or none of use paid much attention to where we were going, because it wasn't long before we found ourselves completely off the trail! We were on a trail, just not the orange trail. Then we realized we were right next to the Girl Scout camp, so it was easy to meet up with the trail again later on. Anyway we weren't worried because no matter which way we went, we were bound to hit a road or someone's back yard or something.

We also found these fun little houses someone made of sticks. Tereasa was the only one goofy enough to pose for a picture inside one of them with me. :)


After we finished hiking, we all went and had food at a nearby diner. Now we just have to teach Jason to build that into his hiking plans next time he organizes one. :)

Charlie Brown Tree

We're back in Jersey now, and after being gone for two consecutive nights, our kitties are happy to see us. They did a pretty good job of making a mess, putting their food all over the kitchen floor, and tracking their cat litter around the house. To prevent Spam from dehydrating the both of them (remember he likes to kick all the water out of the water bowl), we had to leave the bathroom sink filled with water. Needless to say the water was pretty icky by the time we got home, because guess who loves to stand in the water while he drinks...

This evening Russ and I began our Christmas decorating by digging out our vast collection of polymer clays and making one ornament each. A few years ago we made a whole bunch of ornaments out of Sculpey and Crayola Model Magic. Now we just make one or two more ornaments each year to add to our tree.

This year, Russ made a happy little spam musubi with tamago. The rice, whites and blues of the eyes and mouth are all made of glow-in-the-dark Sculpey (ooooooooo!), and the nori is cute because it looks like camouflage.

I experimented with making a 3-D version of a Mochichick Mochi Kid. It's not the easiest thing in the world to make the tiny body. The body and the hair had to be baked first, and then inserted into the head, and then the whole thing baked together. I think I will also try to make a Forky Mochi Kid this year too, so they can hang out together on the tree.

Speaking of the tree, it is the same sorry little fake tree we bought at Craft Supply of Honolulu five years ago. It normally stands about three feet tall (if that), but last year we began mounting it on a stool which adds almost another foot to its height. We call it a Charlie Brown tree because it looks so sorry. And because it is such a small tree, we are running out of branches to hang all of our ornaments on. I suppose we could get a bigger tree, but we decided that can wait for next year. Especially since we have kittens... we'll be lucky if any of our ornaments survive this year! As you can see, little Spammy was my very eager "helper" in getting the tree set up. And something tells me he's going to keep doing his part to set up the tree, every day all the way until we take it down after New Years!

Let it snow let it snow let it snow...

Yesterday Russ and I drove the 200+ miles from New Jersey to my folks' house in Massachusetts to spend Thanksgiving with them. This is the first holiday I've spent with my family in over five years. We were fortunate to have good weather for the entire drive, especially since the weather forecasters kept threatening us with snow for both Wednesday and Thursday.

So this is also the first snowfall I've seen in over five years. Nothing too dramatic, no 5-foot snowdrifts or anything like that. When we woke up this morning, it looked like "frosted mini-wheat" snow - snow that covers the ground, but you can still see the tips of the grass poking through. Later on it snowed some more, I guess just to make the drive over to visit my friend Patti a little more interesting.

So it's nice to see my folks, and although there are only the four of us, there is still plenty of food. I've especially missed my mommy's apple pie, which I think I will have for my supper. :)

Curiosity Singed the Eyebrow

Since I've had some requests for more kitty pictures, here they are:

Little Spammy isn't as little as he used to be. But as you can see, he likes to come visit me while I'm using the computer. He's much better about hanging out during computer-time than Musubi. He'll walk around and rub his face on my nose and then curl up and snuggle against my forearm, but won't get too much in the way of my typing. He's also good about not stepping on the keyboard too much.

Musubi also likes to visit during computer-time:

If she looks a little surprised in this picture, it's because she was busy taking a bath and I had to make kissy noises to get her to look at me for the photo. If you look carefully (click on the picture for an enlargement), you might notice that the whiskers above one of her eyes are shorter than the others. We think this is because she was being naughty a few days ago, and hopped up on the dining room table while we weren't looking. She was probably sniffing the candle we had lit, burning of the top of her eyebrow in the process. Silly kitty. That experience apparently hasn't got her to stop hopping up on the table either. Tsk-tsk-tsk.

Adventure Dance

Last night, instead of going to the dance we normally would have gone to because it is nearby, Russ and I took a drive down to Princeton, about 50 miles away, to check out the Jersey Jumpers monthly swing dance at the Unitarian Universalist Church.

I'm really glad we went, even though it took four or five times as long to get to it than the other dance. The dance hall is huge, and the floor recently resurfaced. There was a really nice mix of age groups, and everyone I met was very friendly. It's been a long time since I've been asked to dance so many times - usually I find I have to do the asking, so that was an added bonus. Plus more people at this dance know how to Lindy, and the music selection has a lot more early jazz and a lot less jump blues.

Have a Seat!

It's been nearly three months since we move into our home. During that whole time our living room furniture consisted of a couple of fold-up camping chairs, which we bought on our closing day, and a couple of sling-back chairs that arrived later along with the rest of our goods from Hawaii. Ohyeah, and then about a month ago, my folks brought down from Massachusetts the Boston rocker that belonged to my grandpa.

Today that's all changed. After two and a half months of waiting, combined with less than stellar customer service from Macy's Route 22 Furniture Gallery, our sofa, loveseat and recliner finally arrived! How nice it is to have something comfortable to flop down on and have a nap when you get home from a long day. Plus guests have someplace comfortable to sit. Yippee!

Now we just need to fill up that space in the middle with a coffee table. And an area rug would be good, too.

Evil Goodness

My friend, Rebecca, loves to cook with her crockpot. She'll cook anything in it, including cakes, which come out quite yummy and moist. She also cooks other kinds of desserts that she likes to call "Wholesome Goodness" because, well, they started off as brownies, but they were just too healthy to be called brownies. She puts all kinds of things in them like bran, fruits, yogurt, and, well, you get the idea. I think of them as poseur brownies.

Anyway, I was just baking a bunch of cookies, and was thinking about Rebecca because her birthday is coming up soon, so she will be the recipient of some of this batch. Unlike Rebecca, I don't make poseur dessert items. In fact I go out of my way to make them even worse (and hopefully yummier) for you than recipes call for (hence the name "Evil Goodness"). The following recipe is adapted from the "Vanishing Oatmeal Cookies" recipe found on the back of the Quaker Oats box. No offense to the raisin industry, but raisins have no buisness being in cookies. Or any other kind of fruit.

Evil Goodness

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
cocoa powder (I dunno how much, enough so the batter looks dark and yummy!)
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups oats
a whole bunch of chocolate chips

• Heat oven to 350 degrees.
• In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugars until creamy.
• Add eggs and vanilla; beat well.
• Add combined flour, baking soda, cocoa, salt; mix well.
• Taste batter to make sure you put enough cocoa in! (Ok, fine, if you are worried about salmonella poisoning, don't taste the batter.)
  
• Stir in oats.
• Stir in chocolate chips. Once you think you have enough chocolate chips in the batter, add some more.
  
• Put blobs of batter on a cookie sheet. Make the blobs as big as you want. I like to make little blobs, because then that means more cookies, but you might like bigger blobs.
• Bake for 8 to 10 minutes; remove from oven and cool cookies on a wire cooling rack.

Never mind what the nutritional information is for these cookies. If you're that worried about it, don't make them!

Allamuchy State Park (Hike #2)

Today I met up with many of the same folks as last week for another hike - this one through Allamuchy State Park. We had another great day, although this time it was a bit cooler (didn't actually break a sweat this time around). We hiked a little more than half of what we did last week, just under seven miles according to our fearless leader's GPS. Oh, and the Dave-count this week was only four.


It's been fun to hang out with new people, though I think I need to teach them a few things - like go out for burgers after the hike is over! Also, our fearless leader is planning a pau hana for the hiking folks a couple of Tuesdays from now... except he doesn't know to call it "pau hana" instead of happy hour. ;)

1st New Jersey Hike

Yesterday I met up with a whole bunch of people I don't know for my very first hike in New Jersey. We went to a place called Ringwood State Park, which is somewhere along the NJ/NY border, maybe about 40-45 minutes drive from our house. The weather was beautiful, very much on the warm side for this time of year, but considerably cooler than what I've hiked in for the last several years. We were expecting to hike about eight miles. However, the end of the hike, our fearless leader, Jason, said it was probably more like ten or eleven.

(And in case Daniel reads this, the "Dave-count" was probably about six.)


So to say the least, it was a good workout. Just enough uphill to make me work up a pretty good sweat. Soon after starting out, it was apparent to me how out of shape I am, as I found it very difficult to keep pace and hold a conversation at the same time.

Oh yeah, and everyone thought I was weird because I brought spam musubi to eat (no, not the cats!) for lunch. And it was hard to get anyone to make shaka signs for photos. Silly east coast people. ;)

East Meets West Again

Today, for lunch, I decided to put furikake on my Annie's Shells and Cheese. It was yummy! :)