I (almost) won the brownie contest

The brownie contest was this past weekend at MIT, sponsored by the MIT chocolate club. Pardon me, the Lab for Chocolate Science. There were about twenty entries. There were five judges who rated each brownie out of ten. I got second place. I missed first place by half a point (half a point!) and only because one of the judges changed his rating of the brownie that won first place. The judges complained that the acidic taste of the cherries was a little jarring, but I think it was because my brownie was one of the last ones to be tasted, and when you only take a little nibble of my brownie, it can be a bit jarring. You need a full bite so that the cherries and the chocolate blend.

And now, for my next trick, I would like to make a caramel brownie. I think that it will be interesting to make a light caramel out of the sugar which is destined to go into the brownie. And then, make a thicker caramel for a caramel swirl, which would go in at the last minute. This brownie sounds like a lot of work, and it might be, but I am going to try anyway. I would also like to make a mint brownie. My first attempt at a mint brownie was only modestly successful, and I think that the addition of a number of different sources of mintiness would add (mint extract in the brownie, crushed mint hard candy, etc). I think that my cherry brownie, substituting the cherries for almonds, and half the flour for almond flour, makes a very nice almond brownie, as is.

In other news, my thesis proposal was rejected AGAIN. On the day I found out it was rejected, I almost made a post here with lots of swearing and cursing f*cking Andy f*cking Lippman. But I decided not to. And this time, he might not even be the culprit (although last time, I am sure it was him). This time, they are complaining that my application sounds too simple. I think that's because they don't know any better. The application(s) I had proposed were a paint/illustrator program, and a model building program where you could pick up and place blocks. Most of the complexity comes from the distributed nature of the application, not from the application itself. I was really mad about this for like five days. But on Tuesday, I met with members of my committee, and David Cavallo had a really good idea: what if I kept the Paint concept, but I added animation! So this sounds good, and I am going to try to think more about how to do this.

I have been more productive lately than I have been in quite some time. Last week, my goal was to put my old tracking functionality into a new software framework that would be conducive to the distributed tracking. Despite all my anxieties about this, it only took me about 4 hours of actual work. If you don't count the time to fix the new networking code. And if you don't count the time I spent writing and thinking about the new software framework. This week, my goal is to get the "distributed" part of the "distributed tracking" working. So far, I am on track to acheive this. The tiles are communicating about what they see, and they are grouping tracks from different sources correctly, unless I do stuff to mess them up. Like hold up two balls of the same color, at the same time.

Last weekend, Mike and I went out with our crazy friend Nuno. We went to Chili's in Burlington, and there was a 45 minute wait. So, we went to the Barnes&Noble next door. Mike bought a magazine called "Make" which had instructions to make a guitar out of a cigar box. I bought a book about Needlcrafts. I think its called "Michael's guide to Needlecrafts" (The store, Michael's). It has stuff and patterns for crochet, knitting, and embroidery.

So, the next day, Mike and I are shopping for our respective things we want to make. We head to Home Depot to get supplies for the cigar box guitar, and while we were there, we picked up some other supplies to make a little workbench. Then, we went to Michael's to get me some circular kitting needles, a cable needle, and some yarn. (I had decided that I was going to make a hat for Mike, using this knitting-in-the-round pattern with cables, to practice some new skills). I think I am on my third or fourth try with this hat. The circular knitting needle was too long, and the yarn was too thick. So, I switched to double pointed needles, and they are a pain in the butt! Last night, I found a website that showed techniques for knitting small pieces using a large circular needle. I think I will try that with some easier yarn.

I went to this IAP class yesterday, called Women's investing for Retirement. It was mostly a bust, but I learned the difference between a growth stock/fund and a value stock/fund. A growth fund is one where the stocks are already performing well, and the future earnings are banking on the current good fortunes of the stock. A value fund is where stocks are undervalued, and they are bought based on their potential for future earnings. So, if a pharmacuetical company just got FDA approval for a new drug, then that is (most likely) a growth stock. But, the same company was just rejected by the FDA, but will soon be approved, that is a value stock.

This weekend, Mike and I are going to Maine. I'm not sure if Barb knows this yet, but now she does!

Mike has a phone again!

Last night, we went and got Mike a new phone. We now have a family plan together from Verizon (aww). Call me, and I'll give you the new number. (And I will record YOUR phone number in my laptop so we can stop calling Barb and asking her for everyone's number every time we need it.) Or you can email me, since not everyone knows my phone number: dhirsh@mit.edu.

Tonight, we are going to a chocolate tasting event hosted by "The Lab for Chocolate Science" at MIT. Basically, its a club for people who like chocolate.

Tomorrow is the brownie contest, and my cherry brownie is ready and raring to go. I hope I win. I don't even know if there is a prize, other than bragging rights. The cherry brownie is a little risky, because if people don't like cherries, you're in trouble! But, I have worked to make sure that the brownie part of the cherry brownie is solid.

Now, my mother. From what I have gathered, "Congestive Heart Failure" is the generic term doctors use to say "your heart isn't working right." More specifically, it means that the heart is, for whatever reason, unable to pump blood to the body effectively.

I guess this isn't all bad. "Congestive heart failure" sure sounds a lot more scary than "I'm tired all the time and I sometimes can't catch my breath." But, it also means that she is under doctor's care, and she has a documented history, so that if something very bad happens (*knock on wood*) the doctors in the emergency room won't just think she has pneumonia or something. So, I hope she does what the doctors tell her to do, and that things get better.

Official Diagnosis

My mother has been diagnosed with congestive heart failure with atrial fibrillation.
:-(

Update from BAE

Quoting:


Diane,

Happy New Year!!

Thought I'd drop you a quick note to let you know what's going on here.
We are still very interested in you and were wondering if you have
gotten a better handle on when you will finish your MS work?

. . .

Oh, and if someone has given you an offer and is pressuring you to
decide PLEASE let us know!

Talk to you again soon.



:-)

Moving, New Year's, and the continuing story of the Breadmaker

I want to give a shout-out to Aviv Moving Services : Thank you!
Last Monday, we came back from the Hirsh Christmas, and we got packing, basically immediately. We took loads of small and odd-shaped stuff to the new house until Thursday, when we had hired movers.

Michael was cool through the whole thing (while I was like a bee in his bonnet), until Thursday, when I finally calmed down, and he got all antsy! Watching the movers struggle with that massive King-sized mattress, we were very glad that we had hired them. It took three hours to move the remainder of our stuff from the old place to the new place.

So then, we set about the daunting task of unpacking. We have a lot of stuff. Not as much as I thought, really -- it mostly fit in the dining room. But boy, oh boy. Looking at all of it, stacked up, was very intimidating.

So, the next day, we begin digging out. I began working on the easy-ish things -- putting away supplies in the bathroom. I also began work in earnest on the kitchen/pantry. When we tried to move Mike's dresser, we put a shallow scratch in the floor -- no big deal, except that the landlord had told us to be very careful with the newly finished floor. We finally got the furniture in the second bedroom in approximately the right place. I was kinda flitting from one thing to another, mostly trying to work on the kitchen.

We didn't have some important pieces of furniture, and this made it hard to put things away. I didn't want to put my wire book case up in the living room -- it was too "dorm". In the kitchen, the stove is kinda sitting in the middle of a wall with no counter or anything next to it, and I wanted a cart to put next to it. We also needed a bedstand, a book case for the living room, a table and chairs where we could eat, and a dresser for me. Off to IKEA!

At IKEA, we had a pretty organized trip -- we knew what we were looking for, and I had a rough idea of what kind of things to get. We wrote down all the numbers for all the things we were going to get, and went to the ground floor to get them from the huge warehouse. The first two items we looked for were not in stock. This was a bit of a blow, and Mike and I were getting testy with each other. Finally, we had some success, getting the dresser, and then the table and chairs (which were massively heavy!). We went to the desk about the book case we wanted, which we had only seen in this ugly white color. Finally, we got everything in the cart that was to be had, and we went to check out. They told us that we were missing a box -- apparently, the dresser came in two boxes. So, we went back for the other box, and we finally got out of there. I was worried that the book case box wasn't going to fit in the car. We had measured the back of the car with the seats down, and found that it was 63 inches long. The box for the bookshelf was something like 89 inches. Mike was totally confident that it would fit. Well, despite my skepticism, he was right. The book shelf poked half way through to the windshield, between our heads. I tried to hold it to the side so Mike could drive, unencumbered.

When we got home, I tried to set about getting the kitchen in order enough to make dinner, while Mike worked on putting the table and chairs together. The table went smoothly, but the chairs were much more complicated. Mike suffered a number of setbacks, before we decided to scrap it and go to dinner.

The next day, our washer and dryer were supposed to be delivered between 7 and 9 AM. Mike was up very early, trying to put the chairs together. and I got up to help him. We suffered a couple more setbacks, but we finally got the chairs together and had our first meal at home -- Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

When the washer and dryer came, we could not take delivery of the dryer because it wouldn't fit in the door. Bummer! So, we are sitting here with a washer, but no dryer. We had to go back to Best Buy to order a smaller dryer which hopefully will fit in the door. It is going to be delivered tomorrow. I was proud of myself, because I talked the guy at Best Buy into not making us pay for delivery again.

Later, the guy from RCN came to bring television and internet access. We had asked for a DVR box, but the message hadn't gotten through. We wanted to set up our wireless router, and so the guy didn't test the internet connection. He just left us to our own devices. It didn't work, and calls to RCN were not terribly helpful. But, they sent someone over for the next day.

We put my dresser together -- which took a very long time. It had a lot of pieces, and was awkward to manipulate. It was definately a two-person job. There was more unpacking.

We went to Christine's New Year's Eve night. The weather was awful. When we got to New Hampshire, we were turning off the main road, and the wheels just let go. We slammed into the divider. I was afraid that we had blown a tire or something. Going gently uphill, towards Christine's house, the wheels were slipping and it was pretty scary. I felt bad for suggesting that we head out in this death trap. We left the party early, because we were worried about the weather. On the way home, it turned out that things weren't so bad. The streets had been plowed and salted, and we didn't have trouble getting up the very steep hill where we now live. It was getting into our driveway that was really scary. Mike just plowed in, and the wheels were slipping, and the car was slipping. The driveway is narrow, and I was afraid he was going to hit the wall next to me broadside. Everything was okay, but I was very scared. We got into the house and turned on the TV about ten minutes before the ball dropped in New York. Yay!

Yesterday, my kitchen was finally together enough to manage to make a meal. We had meatloaf and purple scalloped potatoes -- which were less striking than I had thought they would be. We figured out that the shelves for my wire bookshelf fit perfectly next to the stove. So we bought some new poles, and put it together to serve as my kitchen cart.

Mike has been psuhing to watch the instructional video for the breadmaker (He likes bread). And last night we finally watched it. The breadmaker has a timer function -- so you can put the ingredients in the pan, and it will make the bread for you at a later time. So, we set the breadmaker to have bread ready at 8 AM this morning, which was quite pleasant. I made eggs and sausage to go with it.

We still have some crap left in the living room, but we are mostly settled. We got our CDR / HDTV box today. Mike is drooling over the HD sports. And that is about it!

Tomorrow, Mike goes back to work, and after the dryer comes, I will go to school.