Sunrise was at about 7:15am, and I managed to wake up early enough to set up and take photographs three times during the trip. This shot shows the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (in the hills on the left side of the photo) just as the sun peeked over the mountains. A few of my other favorite sunrise photos are up on flickr.
A black lab puppy is desperately in need of a good home. If you live anywhere in or near the state of Texas, and would be willing to help, the details are here.
I have a lot of revisions I want to get done today, so obviously the first order of business for the morning was eating a healthy breakfast. Oatmeal is very healthy. So I made some. The texture of instant oatmeal doesn’t do it for me, so I made a nice pot of steel cut oats (which I have raved about before). Steel cut oats take about half an hour to cook, and while they were going, I wondered what I could do to improve upon this lovely and healthy breakfast.
Well, I like oatmeal, but I like apple pie …
Last weekend was my second consecutive weekend spent at a con. This time around it was Armadillocon, a little local Austin con that was an entirely different experience than Worldcon in Denver. I had a good time at both cons, but I found Worldcon a bit overwhelming, and Armadillocon was more my speed. I had a lovely time meeting and hanging out with several people I’d only known online and/or through their work before — Steven Utley (impatientape), MK Hobson (mkhobson), Lon Prater (lonfiction), Sheila Williams, Eric Marin (ericmarin), and Patrick Swenson …
It’s strange to be alone at my computer after spending so much time with friends this past weekend. It was so wonderful to meet people I’d only known online before, and reconnect with people I haven’t seen in way too long. An official Worldcon report will come later, but for now I’ve posted some pictures (mainly of me with my Clarion West classmates — worldcon was a bit of a reunion for us):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/78523822@N00/sets/72157606669157338/
Not a lot of posting lately, as I’ve been (and still am) up in the Pacific Northwest visiting family and friends. It’s been great catching up with everyone, and the trip has been a good escape from the 100+ degree heat we’ve been getting down in Austin.
Hiking at Mt. St. Helens with my brother, his girlfriend, and my dad (who took the picture):
Ocean Waves:
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Lots of cooking today, starting with mango salsa. I’ve photographed the finished product before, so today I decided to try my hand at composing a still life from the ingredients: mango, red pepper, red onion, cilantro, lime juice, salt & pepper.
As promised, here is a post about apple upside-down cake:
It all began several days ago, when I made banana bread. I thought to myself, “What would make this banana bread better?” The answer, of course, was maple pecan butter. Flavored butters are very easy to make. For this one, I pan toasted some lightly salted chopped pecans. Then I mixed the pecans with a couple tablespoons of maple syrup and most of a stick of butter. As I suspected, it was …
My original plan for this weekend was to go out to west Texas and see the observatory (Peter’s been out working at the telescope there), but I caught a bit of a cold, so I ended up being home instead. To amuse myself, I took a series of photos of paper umbrellas, which I think came out pretty nice:
There are several other shots on flickr, including a few featuring gummy bears:
I had half a steak left over from last night’s dinner. A bit of rummaging through the fridge turned up some spreadable swiss cheese, pesto, roasted red peppers, and an English muffin. So for brunch* this morning I had an open-faced steak sandwich.
* It’s brunch because it’s too early in the day to call it lunch, and I skipped breakfast.
