Aaron Sorkin Conjures a Meeting of Obama and Bartlet

By Maureen Dowd, New York Times, September 20, 2008
"Now that he’s finally fired up on the soup-line economy, Barack Obama knows he can’t fade out again. He was eager to talk privately to a Democratic ex-president who could offer more fatherly wisdom — not to mention a surreptitious smoke — and less fraternal rivalry. I called the “West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin (yes, truly) to get a read-out of the meeting. This is what he wrote"

Memory Lane: My 1970 Z/28 Camaro

Back in 1970, I owned a car that looked exactly like this, except for the license plate.

Since I considered my driving skills to be exceptional, I did not always drive this amazing vehicle in what you'd call a responsible fashion.

One afternoon my brother Frank and I drove to a brand new section of road, freshly paved, flat as a pancake and straight as an arrow for a mile or two, way out in the middle of nowhere west of then-developed suburban Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We turned off the radio, rolled up the windows, tightened down our seatbelts (no shoulder harnesses in those days, kids) and I put my foot down. Up through the gears we screamed, until the telephone poles were flicking by at an amazing rate, and I noticed that we were in fourth gear and the engine was wailing away, 500 rpm past its redline.

Some years later, sitting with coffee after a family Christmas-season dinner at my parents' place, with the car safely gone to other parts, I was remembering the car fondly. My mother asked me how fast I had gone in it. I told her, "You really don't want to know." She insisted. I reiterated. She insisted again. So, I told her, "One hundred and forty-five miles an hour."

"I wish you hadn't told me." she said.

My Favorite Atlanta Area Bakery

Having grown up in a household managed by my mother, who was, among other things, a German-American Baker-Woman Superhero, baked goods have a special place in my universe.

With that in mind, I thought I'd turn on all you Twitter-less souls to my Favorite Atlanta Area Bakery, Southern Sweets, across from the Dekalb Farmers Market, off Laredo Drive, in Decatur. It is a family business. Mom bakes, her twenty-something red-haired son fronts the retail operation, and Dad is the artist who has produced the delightful paintings that fill the walls.

Go. Buy. Eat. Enjoy. Then write to me and tell me all about it.

Laurel's Kitchen - Oatmeal Pancake Recipe

This is one of our all time breakfast favorites, from Laurel's Kitchen, our favorite cookbook back in the hippie days. The two things we always added was hot real butter and real maple syrup!

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups milk
1 cup rolled oats

1 tablespoon oil
2 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Process

Combine the milk and rolled oats in a bowl and let stand at least five minutes.

Add the oil and beaten eggs, mixing well. Stir in the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Mix just until the dry ingredients are moistened.

Bake on a hot, lightly oiled griddle, using 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake. Turn them when the top is bubbly and the edges are slightly dry.

Makes 10 to 12 pancakes.

P.S. We also got used to having to make a double batch of this great recipe. Enjoy.

Added a new plant to the aquarium

I found a couple of bunches of Rotala wallichii at The Fish Store, up in Sandy Springs, last Wednesday. I didn't know what it was, but it looked healthy, and had that reddish tinge that I've been thinking would add a bit of spice to the aquascape. I took one of the bunches home for a mere $4.59. We'll see how the red color holds up under my lighting.

P.S. Here's a note from the future, from October 17, 2008, to be precise. The Rotala didn't hold up. I'm guessing that it needed more light than it was getting in my little tank, but maybe it was needing more nutrients, as well. There are a few small bits left, but most of it gradually turned to a dark brow mush.

Koi Pond T-Shirt

My wife, Nola, is out of town this week, so it was my turn to go check the mail. There was a key in the box to one of the big boxes. In the big box was one box and one Tyvek bag. In the bag was this beautiful shirt.

The shirt is by a Marie McVey, a lady I met on the Aquarium Photography Forum. Marie keeps goldfish and koi, photographs them, and manipulates the images to get the watercolor effect you see here.

Her work is displayed, and available for sale at extremely reasonable prices, here.

New fishes!

After work today, I headed out Roswell Road, about a mile past the Perimeter, to a tropical fish store. I was hunting a specific fertilizer for the plants in my aquarium and I did find that, but as long as I was there, I browsed the shop, and turned up a bunch of these guys:

They are known in the trade as Corydoras julii, though they are almost certainly actually Corydoras trilineatus. Hmph. Anyhow, they are delightful little guys, now about an inch long, and I picked up three of them. They have this charming habit of swimming around in schools, with their noses in the gravel, looking for some left-overs for lunch. Very cool.

Crayon Physics Deluxe

The most amazing game / simulation.

Ellery Creek Bighole

Ellery Creek Bighole
Originally uploaded by Patricia Mc

I want to go swimming here, or just sit quietly for a day.

Beatnix: Beatles "performing" Stairway to Heaven video mashup

found via boingboing.net