Cheryl on the Web

When I started this blog just over a year ago, I was raving about my new MacBook. It looked good, it performed well, it was cute and sexy and intelligent all in one package! 15 months later though, I’m beginning to feel like a slightly disgruntled customer. I so want to love Apple, as much for their ideology as for their products, but they are making it tough. (more…)

My pumpkin pie yesterday - the first one I ever made - turned out perfectly! (win) In addition to my traditional cooking chaos, I forgot to halve the salt when I halved the crust recipe for the pie, but luckily I tasted the dough and realized my mistake in time .. and started over on the crust! Then, after I’d put the (revised) pie crust and the pumpkin filling in the pie form and into the oven, I watched in dismay as the crust started to fall down from the sides of the pan into the filling! Just as I was beginning to think I would end up with something that amounted to a pumpkin pie (soup) dough bowl, the crust started to stiffen and I carefully pushed it all back up against the sides of the pan. (This is a perfect example of why American pie pans have sloped, not vertical, sides.) To accompany the pie at our Thanksgiving dinner, (more…)

There’s nothing like biking across town and up a huge hill in order to get to my bi-weekly German class on time to bring out the youth in me. Though, given the huffing and puffing that accompanied the trek up the hill, the amount of youth I demonstrated is perhaps questionable. If nothing else, I should at least improve in biking up hills in addition to learning some German, given that this course is 2 semesters long and runs until May next year. (more…)

Tim came home with a PS3 (PlayStation 3) this weekend. It took us a little while to figure out where to put it since it is aesthetically equivalent to a 12 x 5 x 9 inch black box - read, not that easy to hide in what we otherwise would consider our aesthetically pleasing living room. We connected the box via a high-definition cable to the TV and via an optical sound cable to the sound system (and of course remembered to plug it into the power outlet as well). Then, full of anticipation, we turned it on. (more…)

Almost as noble as cause as “Save the Earth”, was for me today “Save the Washing Machine”. We have an Indesit WD104T, bought in Holland in February 2003, for the grand sum of 400 euro. Why, you ask, is all that detail important? First, Indesit machines are made in Turkey, not made to last. Second, the model number starting with 1 should tell you we bought the entry level model. Third, February 2003 is 4 1/2 years ago so the thing is hitting its mid-life crisis (according to this article and this one too, the average life span is around 10-11 years). Fourth, last but not least, 400 euro for a washing machine that includes a condense dryer is a good deal in most any book. Or dirt cheap, depending on how you look at it.
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My favorite pastime is building things. Few occupational tasks in life bring me more enjoyment than the logical process of combining parts in a carefully chosen way and order, applying the necessary manipulation, in order to achieve the desired end result as quickly as possible. It feels sometimes like from the age of two, my brain broke the most common tasks and problems down into mini building projects. If only I had been blessed with a bit more imagination, my favorite toy would have been Lego’s.

Much of this ingenuity is due my parents, in particular my dad whose job it was to design and engineer buildings and design site plans for empty plots of land. As a kid, little fascinated me more than the few times that my dad would bring home one of his engineering plans to work on. Now I think I would have liked being an engineer but all the rules - in particular those from the government - frightened me. I’m glad I became a software architect, I think we have quite a bit more freedom.

Anyway, in tribute of the knack for building I inherited from my Dad, and his special birthday on Sunday, here follows a photo-report of his latest free-time building project:
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I’ve got so much to say today, partly because I’ve been trying to spend less time on the computer in my free time, and more time doing .. anything else .. and that only gives me more to talk about on this blog. So, sorry to those dedicated blog readers for the lack of updates, and here’s hoping you’ll enjoy this one.

First thing to report, is that a cute little bird built her nest in the back corner of our outdoor storage area about two weeks ago, and her chicks hatched last week! For a week now we’ve been watching anxiously to see if she manages to feed the four little heads that we every now and then see sticking out of the nest. The nest is about as wide as Tim’s open hand, so you can imagine how small the chicks in the picture really are. It seems she’s doing her best, but how in the world she feeds herself and all four of them is beyond my comprehension. I imagine she can tell you it’s hard work being a mom. It’s supposed to rain off and on this week, for which we’re glad, since hopefully that will get those worms up out of the ground.
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