8.02.2016
7.11.2016
Cheddar Cheese Festival
Yes thats right, CHEEEEEEEEEEESE. North Country (FYI Toto we aren't in Kansas anymore) as basically all of New York that isn't New York City or Buffalo is called is home to lots and lots and lots and lots of cheese. Its mostly pretty tame farmers cheeses, not the super yum cheeses in Vermont. Damn you Vermont and your artisan cheeses. The Village, yes village not big enough to be a city, of Adams is home to the Great Lakes Cheese Company and to celebrate a big warehouse where some cheese is made they host a reasonable excuse to have fried dough on a warm summer day otherwise known as a Festival. Sadly I found the Cheese Fest to be sadly lacking in milk in its solid form but it was nice to get out and take some pictures.
Milk a fake cow/bucket
No other food was being advertised, just the fried dough.
Live music, excellent people watching and BBQ chicken. This is what summer is made of.
Don't mess around with a town that has a BBQ pit like this one.
You'd think there'd be a bigger turn out for the mac and cheese contest, but just 5 entries.
The yard and flowers belong to a lovely antique shop, that I will be returning to.
4.19.2016
BOOKS!
Another edition of BOOKS! I love to read and I have a long commute so Audio-books are my answer to 40 hours of driving a month. That's a lot books btw.
SCIENCE BOOKS!
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat- Oliver Sacks who wrote Awakenings and has written many books on Neurology, writes interesting accounts of interesting conditions. It has a lot big science vocab, which I suggest looking up but is other wise a super interesting book about crazy shit your brain does when its broken.
Working Stiff- A great book about 2 years working as an ME in New York city. If you like Dr. G and her amazing tales of how people die then you'll like this book. The narrator is a little to radio ad lady for me but the stories are good and I love Pathology.
The Family that Couldn't Sleep- An amazing walk through Prion diseases. The history of their discovery and the many forms they take, scabies in sheep, wasting disease in deer, BSE in cows, CJD in humans and a terrifying inherited insomnia disease in a family in Italy which is the family that could not sleep. Not too dry and super interesting.
No Stone Left Unturned- A great history of the amazing people who formed Necro Search International. The scientific team of people who use a vast number of different fields to locate and identify clandestine graves around the world. They highlight some of their most interesting cases and greatest triumphs.
Periodic Tales- One authors person and scientific walk through the periodic table. Stories about all the elements, how they got their name, how they became popular or why you rarely see them. It gives you a connection to the elements as things rather than atomic weights and symbols.
FICTION
On Her Majesty's Secret Service- A great listen, read by David Tennet. Its such a different Bond novel and Tennet is such a delightful narrator you'll be hooked. Warning, Bond novels are not the same as the movies but this one especially. It'll make you wish they made the movies more like the books.
The Beekeeper's Apprentice - I'm torn on liking this book and thinking it rather strange. A teenage genius girl become a retired Sherlock Holmes protege. The girl is kind of an annoying Mary Sue type character and the Holmes relationship is a little on the odd side. The story has good bones but its a tough willing suspension of disbelief.
Ready Player One- Read by Wil Wheaton this delightful story set in the future and about a virtual reality is FULL of 80's nostalgia and geeky delights. A tad cheesy its still fun.
Octopussy and the Living Daylights, and Other Stories- Listen to it just to hear Tom Hiddleston say Octopussy if nothing else. While everyone wants him to be Bond, he would actually be the best Bond Villain ever, hands down. One thing you get from the books is that Bond was not a classy dude. He learned class but came from a working class background and the refined Hiddleston is too upper-crust to be a true Bond. He can read the phone book however if he wanted to, and Octopussy is such a fun story and The Living Daylights is such a great Cold War tale, enjoy it. Plus there's a bonus story read by Lucy Flemming, Ian's niece who runs the estate and organized all these great narrators for the re-release of her uncles works.
The Girl in the Spiders Web- A passable if hard to swallow pick up of the Millemum series after the author's death. Its stretch and if you read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat you'll discover much of the new author's inspiration for the characters. Too many very convenient coincidences, and not enough Erika Berger.
Wolf Hall- Very well written Historical Fiction about Thomas Cromwell and his life. Great to listen to, but it hops around a bit so hold on to your hat. A great look into the life of a man who came from nothing to loose his head for being too important.
NON-FICTION
The People Who Eat Darkness- Creepy alert! A great if totally creepy true crime novel which sheds light onto the dark underside of Hostesses in Japan. Written by an English journalist who lives in Japan and watched the whole thing unfolded.
My Life in France- JULIA CHILD! Her fantastic memoirs which her lovely great-nephew helped her with. An enchanted story of her and her beloved Paul's time in the country they loved so much. Plus how she found her way into your TV and heart. You might find yourself wanting to learn to make all her dishes after listening to this.
The Creation of Anne Boleyn-A great look into the real Anne. The history of the ways Anne has been portrayed in media for hundreds of years, and a more realistic look at her and her plotting crazy pants family. Also she was pretty ugly by all accounts.
I have more..... so many more books to talk about. Instead watch The Night Manager tonight on AMC. Or read the book.
FYI- I'm bored to tears at work. So BLOG Time!!
SCIENCE BOOKS!
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat- Oliver Sacks who wrote Awakenings and has written many books on Neurology, writes interesting accounts of interesting conditions. It has a lot big science vocab, which I suggest looking up but is other wise a super interesting book about crazy shit your brain does when its broken.
Working Stiff- A great book about 2 years working as an ME in New York city. If you like Dr. G and her amazing tales of how people die then you'll like this book. The narrator is a little to radio ad lady for me but the stories are good and I love Pathology.
The Family that Couldn't Sleep- An amazing walk through Prion diseases. The history of their discovery and the many forms they take, scabies in sheep, wasting disease in deer, BSE in cows, CJD in humans and a terrifying inherited insomnia disease in a family in Italy which is the family that could not sleep. Not too dry and super interesting.
No Stone Left Unturned- A great history of the amazing people who formed Necro Search International. The scientific team of people who use a vast number of different fields to locate and identify clandestine graves around the world. They highlight some of their most interesting cases and greatest triumphs.
Periodic Tales- One authors person and scientific walk through the periodic table. Stories about all the elements, how they got their name, how they became popular or why you rarely see them. It gives you a connection to the elements as things rather than atomic weights and symbols.
FICTION
On Her Majesty's Secret Service- A great listen, read by David Tennet. Its such a different Bond novel and Tennet is such a delightful narrator you'll be hooked. Warning, Bond novels are not the same as the movies but this one especially. It'll make you wish they made the movies more like the books.
The Beekeeper's Apprentice - I'm torn on liking this book and thinking it rather strange. A teenage genius girl become a retired Sherlock Holmes protege. The girl is kind of an annoying Mary Sue type character and the Holmes relationship is a little on the odd side. The story has good bones but its a tough willing suspension of disbelief.
Ready Player One- Read by Wil Wheaton this delightful story set in the future and about a virtual reality is FULL of 80's nostalgia and geeky delights. A tad cheesy its still fun.
Octopussy and the Living Daylights, and Other Stories- Listen to it just to hear Tom Hiddleston say Octopussy if nothing else. While everyone wants him to be Bond, he would actually be the best Bond Villain ever, hands down. One thing you get from the books is that Bond was not a classy dude. He learned class but came from a working class background and the refined Hiddleston is too upper-crust to be a true Bond. He can read the phone book however if he wanted to, and Octopussy is such a fun story and The Living Daylights is such a great Cold War tale, enjoy it. Plus there's a bonus story read by Lucy Flemming, Ian's niece who runs the estate and organized all these great narrators for the re-release of her uncles works.
The Girl in the Spiders Web- A passable if hard to swallow pick up of the Millemum series after the author's death. Its stretch and if you read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat you'll discover much of the new author's inspiration for the characters. Too many very convenient coincidences, and not enough Erika Berger.
Wolf Hall- Very well written Historical Fiction about Thomas Cromwell and his life. Great to listen to, but it hops around a bit so hold on to your hat. A great look into the life of a man who came from nothing to loose his head for being too important.
NON-FICTION
The People Who Eat Darkness- Creepy alert! A great if totally creepy true crime novel which sheds light onto the dark underside of Hostesses in Japan. Written by an English journalist who lives in Japan and watched the whole thing unfolded.
My Life in France- JULIA CHILD! Her fantastic memoirs which her lovely great-nephew helped her with. An enchanted story of her and her beloved Paul's time in the country they loved so much. Plus how she found her way into your TV and heart. You might find yourself wanting to learn to make all her dishes after listening to this.
The Creation of Anne Boleyn-A great look into the real Anne. The history of the ways Anne has been portrayed in media for hundreds of years, and a more realistic look at her and her plotting crazy pants family. Also she was pretty ugly by all accounts.
I have more..... so many more books to talk about. Instead watch The Night Manager tonight on AMC. Or read the book.
FYI- I'm bored to tears at work. So BLOG Time!!
4.18.2016
The Weekly Claire: O-Shit edition
Um sooooooo its April and I haven't posted since January. Oops. Big Oops. I'm at work for like 11 hours a day and so nothing interesting happens in my life. I'm about to move and quit my job so I'm really hoping that will change and I can get some blog-worthy pictures and such in. I'm mostly cleaning my office today in preparations of leaving, even though I have two full weeks of work left. These pictures where taken a year ago, not much has changed around here.
1.24.2016
The Weekly Claire: Bringing it Back
I'm bring the Weekly Claire back!
I'm trying to take pictures throughout the week. Edgar got some good reading in, but put it passed the little bugger he's crazy smart. He regularly asks "whatch doing?".
I started the "Night Manger" in preparation for the AMC mini-series coming this spring. I'm excited to see how they turn it into a show since its a beast of a book. Since its coming with me to work for lunch reading I hope to get through it before the show begins.
SNOW! We had a mid-day snow event on tuesday and they sent us home early. It put a huge cramp in my week but it also took me 1.5 hours to get home (55 minutes normally). One dude took a right hand turn a little fast and almost took out Sheldon while we waited to turn left. Luckily I didn't pull up all the way to accommodate left hand turners from the other side not thinking some turd would gun his New Century and its massive front would drift.
Trex (our local gas station) has the BEST food and it was meatloaf day, so naturally we went for lunch. I customized my togo box. I did some questionable unsafe, gloveless, coatless science but seriously whats new with me on that. Designed a new emoji, which is soooo lacking. Got a walk in when the sun finally came out and snapped some pictures of the creek looking fab in its wintery splendor. Then took advantage of the sunshine to get you some nice photos of my great birthday boots, the sweater I'm knitting and Orchid in all its glory. Then finished out the morning by making braised short ribs with figs!
BAM! How that for a week. Decides T.W.C I'll get you an updated BOOKS! To read and listen to. Plus more, I don't know, more crafting! sewing! food!
Smooches
1.12.2016
I'm a grown up, I promise
I am! I am! I am!. I did however get the best Lego set for my birthday. All like 400+ pieces. I admit to savoring it, and putting it together slowly because it was just too much fun.
Not only do you get a TARDIS, which is "bigger on the inside" but the 11th and 12th Doctors. Clara too (though I am not a huge Clara fan, I'm pretty trilled with 12th Doctor's angry eyebrows). Two Daleks and a Weeping Angel round out the set.
Sooooo while I was cleaning my office this weekend I realized I might have a small Lego mini-figure problem. Just a little.
Not only do you get a TARDIS, which is "bigger on the inside" but the 11th and 12th Doctors. Clara too (though I am not a huge Clara fan, I'm pretty trilled with 12th Doctor's angry eyebrows). Two Daleks and a Weeping Angel round out the set.
The whole set is so very clever. The TARDIS closes up!
DON'T BLINK!
Sooooo while I was cleaning my office this weekend I realized I might have a small Lego mini-figure problem. Just a little.
These two ladies have a very important job......
Thanks Gals!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)