"I suggest you choose your next witticism wisely, it may be your last."

"Do you expect me to talk?"

"No, Mister Bond, I expect you to dye!"

Gurggl! Gurggl mrrphghl!

You only live twice

If you’re not sure why Bond must dye, this may help.

The tasting menu he arranged was (in a sort of historical order, with his descriptions in italics):

1. Oud Beersel Oud Kriek. Brouwerij Oud Beersel. Traditional Fruit Lambic. Blegium. Tart & Funky. I thought this one was fantastic, giving it ★★★. It was elegantly pink to look at, smell and taste. Definitely had a sour, funky taste but in a good way.
2. Aecht Schlenkerla Märzen. Brauerei Heller-Trum. Bamberg Rauchbier Märzen. Germany. Smoke. ★ This was the most interesting beer, but probably the one I would least like to have a whole glass of again. Rauchbier means “smoke beer,” and this is very smokey. It’s a bit like drinking your beer while standing in front of a smoking BBQ. Before kilns the fire smoking would have been employed frequently in beer making, but apparently this is somewhat unique because they use modern lager (?) techniques to remove most of the other flavors, which would normally yield a very smooth clear flavor, but in this case just overwhelmingly highlights the smoke flavor.
3. Orchard White. The bruery. Witbier. California. Fruit & Spice. ★★ Pretty good. It was wine-like to me, in appearance and flavor. A bit fruity, with spices like coriander, lavender and orange peel.
4. Porterhouse Oyster Stout. Porterhouse Brewing Co. Dry Stout. Ireland. Roast.★★.5 This was a nice stouty flavor. I didn’t write much about it. Apparently the name comes from a long, convoluted process that basically means this beer was made for the poor (such as porters) and they also ate oysters.
5. Aventinus. Brauerei Schneider. Weizenbock. Germany. Fruit & Spice.★★★★ This was probably my favorite. It was a brown, tasty beer that didn’t seemed fairly light tasting. Could imagine drinking a bit of it.
6. Insanity. Weyerbacher Brewing. Barrel-Aged Barleywine. Pennsylvania. Malt. ★★ I was kinda meh on this one. It was fine, but nothing I would particularly want to return to. A bit bitter, perhaps, but he said it wasn’t.
7. Unearthly. Southern Tier Brewing. Imperial IPA. New York. Hop. ★★★ A good, hoppy beer, if that’s what your into.

He recommended gravitating toward Sierra Nevada Torpedo, Anything by Victory Brewing, and Saisons in the beer aisle. Afterwards there were some tasty hors d’œuvre and glasses of whichever beer you wished for. Overall a fantastic event, and very informative.

Marian took me to the lovely Columbia Room on Friday. We arrived at ~5:05 and left ~7:30, and for about half of it were the only patrons in the bar. They do a tasting menu of cocktails, with 2 prescribed and one up to each patron & their bartender. The staff was very warm and friendly, and while I can see how at its worst (particularly if it was “crowded,” which they seemingly strive to avoid) it could come off as a bit pretentious, we had an excellent time.

Derek, JP and Katie all made us feel well tended to and seemed genuinely excited about drinks & sharing drink with the world. We spent most of the time chatting with them about various ingredients behind the bar, getting free sniffs & sips of a few different things. (Oh, and they do have awesomely large ice blocks they cut down to size. Apparently the come from a local ice company that mostly makes them for ice sculpture).

The first drink we had was Chatham Artillery Punch. Classic southern punch w/ lots of booze, kinda sweet. Definitely packs more of a punch than you expect, given the small serving size. My recollection + googling says this has bourbon, cognac and Jamaican rum plus sugar, lemon juice and sparkling wine.

Second was a whiskey and coke, but it was a light whiskey (3-6 months aged), kinda like moonshine he claims, from Texas (True Blue). JP/they made their own hickory smoked cola and carbonated it there. Some lime juice as well, plus some other random stuff. This tasted like a mix between the most delicious whiskey & coke ever and BBQ sauce. Surprising, and tasty. They served that with bourbon vanilla gelato (from Dulcezza), boiled peanuts (hard to eat with a spoon…) and a seasame sugar wafer thing.

Third I had a gin basil smash, because they had fresh basil sitting in front of us on the bar and it kept smelling delicious. It had a strong basil aroma, but wasn’t overpowering in the drink.

Marian’s Third was a passionfruit gin fizz (but it had egg white & sparkling wine, which wikipedia suggests is like a passionfruit silver diamond gin fizz or something) that was delicious. Fruity, but not too sweet. I only got a few sips of this one, so you know it must be good.

The last drinks were served with salty truffle oil marcona almonds & these really fresh, not salty, olives.

We had a fantastic time, and would strongly encourage you to go if you’re ready for an evening of over engineered, tasty cocktails. We were nervous about going so early, but in the end I think it was more pleasant having an even smaller scale experience.

Now it’s time to detox my poor, poor liver.

A while ago I heard about Instapaper – a tool that was supposed to solve that.  I could save articles and they’d go into Instapaper, where I could read them later at my leisure. Instapaper would also strip out some of the extraneous shit on the internet and make the articles more readable. After a few days I realized I would never actually go back to the instapaper site to read them, so I sort of gave up. I installed the iPhone app, but that wasn’t quite right either.

Then a few weeks ago I discovered that Instapaper can now push articles to Kindle!

Instapaper on my Kindle. This is the most useful article overview for me.

It turns out this is the perfect delivery mechanism for me. The articles I Instapaper aren’t time sensitive, and they’re long enough that I strongly prefer the digital screen. With WiFi the articles are delivered free, generally a day or two after I hit the button in the browser without me having to do anything else. Click, wait, read on kindle. This is fine, and means there are often little surprises for me.

Instapaper is well integrated into other parts of my life, namely Twitter for iPhone. I’m rarely interested in reading a whole article in iPhone twitter, but I often am curious to read more. I just hit the Instapaper button and it syncs over, easy as pie.

I strongly encourage anyone else who’s found it hard to sink your teeth into a good article online to try out the Instapaper + Kindle delivery option. It really legitimizes longer form content on the web.

An article!

Reading about the anniversary, my dad looked up Nathaniel Lebby, Patriot, And Some of his Descendants by Edmund Detreville Ellis (my great grandfather) and found that there was a reference on p. 170. He typed the excerpt from his paper copy:

My parents were married in the official residence of the Quarantine Officer of the State of South Carolina and the Port of Charleston, Dr. Robert Lebby, Jr., on January 29, 1889 – my grandfather Lebby’s 58th birthday – by Rev. Josiah McL. Seabrook. The house is still standing and is occupied by a Doctor and his family!  It is only a few hundred yards from where Dr. Lebby, in his capacity as Physician, stood when “The First Shot” was fired from Fort Johnson on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861! He later wrote an account of that historic event.

My dad found the account, in The South Carolina historical and genealogical magazine, Volume 12. A plaintext copy (all thanks to the fine folks at Google, I assume) is here for posterity. You can see the original scanned PDF at that link above, and even download it in epub to read on a kindle(!?).

THE FIRST SHOT ON FORT SUMTER
By Robert Lebby (1833-1910), M. D.

The following paper was prepared about 1893, by the late Dr. Robert Lebby, for many years quarantine officer of the State of South Carolina at the port of Charleston, and by him given in 1906 to Mr. A. S. Salley, Jr., Secretary of the Historical Commission of South Carolina, for permanent preservation by the publication thereof. Mr. Salley permitted The News and Courier to print it in its issue of Monday, September 3, 1906, and presents it here for the twofold purpose of preserving a most conclusive presentation of evidence regarding the firing of the first hostile shot on Fort Sumter and of carrying out his promise to Dr. Lebby to have the paper published in permanent form.
April 12, 1893, will be the thirty-​second anniversary of the first shell fired at Fort Sumter, and is generally considered as the opening of the terrible struggle between the Northern and Southern sections of this great country—the one ostensibly for the preservation of the Union of these United States; the other for the maintenance of their rights under the Constitution of that Union, which they felt were being wrested from them by a fanatical element at the North.
Much has been written to prove the particular individual who fired the first shell at Fort Sumter, and thereby establish the fact of a questionable honor of having inaugurated the most momentous struggle in the history of the world, both as to its duration and the numbers engaged in it, and the tenacity with which those of the weaker section maintained themselves against those of the stronger, with the
3
whole of Europe to recruit their armies from and all the resources which their open ports afforded.
I purpose, as a witness to this opening episode in the great drama, beginning April 12, 1861, to give my recollection of it, along with that of others who were on the historic spot of Fort Johnson at that time, as there are but a few now left who were there and witnessed what took place thirty-​two years ago, in order that when the history of this gigantic struggle may be written in after years, some items may be obtained that will assist in its compilation.
In order that one not present on the spot may understand the situation of affairs at Fort Johnson at that time, I will state that there were two mortar batteries erected at Fort Johnson for the reduction of Fort Sumter. One situated on the front beach, midway between old Fort Johnson and the Lazaretto point, and directly west of Fort Sumter, and known as the beach, or east, battery (This was the most vulnerable and the weakest line of Fort Sumter), and the other was located due northwest of the former on a hill near some houses and contiguous to the present quarantine residence. The remains of this battery are still plainly visible. It was knOwn as the hill, or west, battery. The east, or beach, battery has been washed away by the sea, but I have saved the timber that was used in the construction of the magazine. This comprises the topography of the offensive works at Fort Johnson for the reduction of Sumter on April 12, 1861.
The post of Fort Johnson consisted, at that date, of these two batteries of mortars and a company of infantry as reserves, all under command of Captain George S. James, South Carolina State troops.
The battery on the beach, or east, was under the immediate command of Captain James, with Lieutenant Henry S. Farley as lieutenant, and the battery on the hill, or west, was under the immediate command of Lieutenant Wade Hampton Gibbes, I think with Lieutenant J. McPherson Washington as next, and the company of infantry, as reserves, was commanded by Lieutenant Theodore B. Hayne, and was stationed near the old Martello Tower, about 400
yards in the woods, to the northwest of the hill, or Gibbes, battery.
I have been thus particular in the location of the battery and its officers for reasons that will be apparent hereafter, and they are facts that cannot be contradicted.
The first point to be established is from what battery was the first mortar shell fired?
General Beauregard, Military Operations, page 42, chapter 4, last paragraph, says:
From Fort Johnson’s mortar battery at 4.30, A. M.,issued the first shell of the war. It was fired not by Mr. Ruffin, of Virginia, as has been erroneously supposed1, but by Capt. George S. James, of South Carolina, to whom Lieut. Stephen D. Lee issued the order.
Captain Stephen D. Lee, an aide of General Beauregard’s, and who, with Gen. Chesnut, informed Major Anderson that fire would be opened on Fort Sumter, says:
The first fire was from James’s battery.2
Mr. Edward H. Barnwell, of Charleston, who was present at Gibbes’s battery at the opening, says:
The first shell fired at Sumter was from James’s east battery (or the beach battery); the second was from the west (or hill battery). I was at this battery among some houses, one of which our forces tried to blow up, being too near the battery (Greer’s house). This was the battery under command of Lieut. W. H. Gibbes.
Dr. W. H. Prioleau, surgeon of the post, who was at the east, or beach, battery when the first shell was fired, states:
On the morning of April 12, 1861, as soon as orders were received to open fire on Fort Sumter, we repaired to our posts, and twentyfive or thirty minutes after 4, A. M., by my watch, which I held open in my hand at the time, the first gun was fired, this being the right-​hand mortar in the battery on the beach. I cannot recollect who pulled the lanyard, but this gun was directly in charge of Lieutenant Henry S. Farley, who, as well as I can recollect, sighted the gun. Captain James giving the order to fire.’
1“The venerable Edmund Ruffin, who, as soon as it was known a battle was inevitable, hastened over to Morris’ Island and was elected a member of the Palmetto Guard, fired the first gun from Stevens’ Iron Battery. All honor to the chivalric Virginian! May he live many years to wear the fadeless wreath that honor placed upon his brow on our glorious Friday.”—The Charleston Daily Courier, Saturday, April 13, 1861. (Note by A. S. S., Jr.)
2Vide Southern Historical Society Papers, November 1883, and other papers of Gen. Lee.
“Note this evidence.
Colonel Henry S. Farley, now of Mount Pleasant Military Academy, Sing Sing, New York, who was a lieutenant with James in the beach battery, states in a letter to me:
The circumstances attending the firing of the first gun at Sumter are q•uite fresh in my memory. Captain James stood on my right, with watch in hand, and at the designated moment gave me the order to fire. I pulled the lanyard, having already carefully inserted a friction tube, and discharged a thirteen-​inch mortar shell, which was the right of battery. In one of the issues of a Charleston evening paper, which appeared shortly after the reduction of Fort Sumter, you will find it stated that Lieutenant Farley fired the first gun, and Lieutenant Gibbes the second.4
I will now give my personal recollections of the affair. I am a native, and was a resident and practicing physician of James’ Island at the time the first gun was fired, and consequently was perfectly conversant with the topography of the location, and having been a college acquaintance of Captain James, was invited by him the previous day, April 11, to be on hand if anything transpired to require my services. I accepted his invitation and remained to witness the first, and last, gun fired at Sumter at that time.
My recollection of the matter is that on the morning of April 12, 1861, about ten minutes before 4, A. M., Captain S. D. Lee, with two other gentlemen, having just returned from Sumter, passed a group of four gentlemen, I among the number, and inquired for Captain James’s quarters, and when directed to the house occupied by Captain James, remarked on passing, that the ball would soon be opened.
A short time elapsed, when Captain James and others passed to the beach, or east, battery, and Captain Lee and his party went on down to the wharf. I was midway between the houses on a bridge that connected the beach and the hill, where I could see the fire of either battery, and at

“‘At thirty minutes past four o’clock the conflict was opened by the discharge of a shell from the Howitzer Battery on James’ Island, under the command of Captain GEO. S. JAMES, who followed the riddled Palmetto banner on the bloody battle fields of Mexico.
“The sending of this harmful messenger to Major Anderson was followed by a deafening explosion, which was caused by the blowing up of a building that stood in front of the battery.
“While the white smoke was melting away into the air another shell, which Lieut. W. HAMPTON GIBBES has the honor of having fired, pursued its noiseless way toward the hostile fortification.”—The Charleston Daily Courier, Saturday, April 13, 1861. (Note by A. S. S., Jr.)
4:30, A. M., a shell was fired from the beach, or east, battery, commanded by Captain James.
The second report heard was the blowing up of Greer’s house, contiguous to the hill battery, commanded by Lieutenant W. H. Gibbes, and the second shell was fired from this battery under Lieutenant Gibbes. The firing then became general around the harbor batteries bearing on Sumter.
We have, therefore, the concurrent testimony of General Beauregard, who ordered the fire to commence; of Captain Stephen D. Lee, the officer extending the order; of Lieutenant Farley, who was in the battery when the gun was fired, and of the medical officer, Dr. W. H. Prioleau, who was on duty in the battery; also of Lieutenant Edward H. Barnwell, who was present at the hill, or Gibbes, battery, and of myself, who all bear witness to the fact that the first shell was fired from Captain James’s battery on the beach. How, then, can anyone claim that the shell was fired from any other point with this weight of evidence against it?
As to the question of who pulled the lanyard of the mortar from which issued the first shell, there are only two living witnesses that I am cognizant of who were in the battery at the time of the fire, viz: Colonel Henry S. Farley and Dr. W. H. Prioleau. Colonel Henry S. Farley asserts in a letter to me that he pulled the lanyard by Captain James’s order, and Dr. Prioleau asserts that Lieutenant Farley had charge of the right gun of the battery, and that the first fire was from that gun, Captain James giving the order to fire, and it is reasonable to conclude, therefore, that Farley pulled the lanyard. Certain it is that either James or Farley fired it, but, as Captain James gave the order to fire, it must have been Farley, as James would never have given himself the order to fire. The order, therefore, must have been given to Farley. I, therefore, conclude that Lieutenant Henry S. Farley fired the first gun at Sumter by Captain James’s order.

If we move some furniture around we have about 49 inches of width to play with – not much. We took a look at various leaning desks, but rejected them because the space just didn’t make sense. Marian stumbled upon the StudioDesk by BlueLounge. It seemed intriguing and perfectly suited – she’s a laptop user in need of a small desk. Unfortunately it’s the only piece of furniture made by the company, and we couldn’t find a single independent review by anyone who had actually seen the desk in person. Was it cheap junk being sold for way too much? Would it hold up? Is it worth the money?

Well, it sure looks impressive in the product images.

Since nobody local seemed to carry it, I decided the only way to find out was to order the sucker and write a review. B&H offered it for a better price, with semi-reasonable shipping and most importantly, a 15 day return policy. I secretly ordered it at 11:49 AM on Monday, and Tuesday by 4 it had arrived. The shipping box was pretty banged up, and it was quite heavy.

It's here!

Assembly was reasonably easy. The hardest part was getting it out of the box, while keeping everything in good enough condition to be returned in. The instructions were buried somewhere in the middle so I’d basically unpacked it first.

To attach the legs, you pop off the bottom of the cable tray, and bolt the legs into a diagonal cross brace. Then you screw in the two bottom panels on the trays (the photo on the left is with the trays in place) with 12 screws. That’s almost all the assembly. Once it’s upright you drop the top slider element into the grooves, and slide it forward.

The bottom of the desk, with the panels removed but legs attached.

The underside of the desk, ready to be flipped upright.

I didn’t look into it the materials too carefully, but it seems to mostly be particle board/fiberboard/laminate. Certainly the cable area is, and I assume the desk surface is – except for the edging. The legs are mahogany, and the diagonals are plain plywood. The sliders on the desktop seemed like they might be solid wood, but I couldn’t exactly determine. It’s very heavy, 70lbs. It seemed fairly well built, but ours had a crack in one of the sidewalls of the cable area. It wasn’t tooooo bad, but if we decide to keep it I think we’ll get it replaced. It goes down the height of the side board, and along its length for maybe a foot.

Side long shot of the crack. You can see it along the left side.

Here’s a shot of the main desk top. You can see the various materials. Keep in mind that the desk is laying upside down here, so the highest part of the picture is actually the underside of the desk. You can also see the foam rubber that lines the inside of the slit along the back of the desk, to keep cables in place I assume.

This is the inside of the desktop slot. Note: the desk is laying upside down, so the top of the image is the underside of the desk.

Flipping it over was easy enough. The desktop part just sits down in the middle, and then slides forward. That means you can’t accidentally pull it too far forward, it won’t let you. Clever, that.

Right after adding the desktop and sliding it forward most of the way.

Here's the inside of the storage compartment, from one end to the other.

The fake leather isn’t very nice, IMO. I don’t object to the fakeness, but it wasn’t a nice feel and it was very think. For example, Ikea a pleather desk pad that I think is substantially better. It just sits on top of the slide desktop and sticks slightly over the edge of the seams. It didn’t really sit naturally there, and felt like it could slide off or something. I added the laptop, some speakers, etc. The storage compartment was already feeling a little crowded with just a couple of cables, so I was definitely worried about getting a half dozen USB devices and such in there.

Inside the storage compartment

Here we go - the basic completed setup.

So there you see it – the desk setup. It’s really not huge, and the blotter awkwardly divides the space. In the end, we’re going to be sending it back. It was $533, and really not much better than a $180 Galant. The compartment is clever, but not really clever enough. Some nice $20 alternatives would be nearly as workable for organizing. Hopefully these reviews and comments will help you decide whether it’s the right option for you. I’m sure some folks will love it.

Fast forward to this Sunday when I ran my second race, the Cherry Blossom Ten Miler. This was a rather huge step up. I’ve had IT Band problems since the beginning of March, and didn’t run nearly enough during the winter (those two facts are certainly related). I was rather nervous about the race before hand. My Forerunner 305 was saying my HR was 121 just standing in the starting area, waiting. However, I finished! My knee was fine for most of the run, I had a little left to push that last mile, and did it in 1:47:15, or 10:44 per mile. Not particularly good, but I did it. I tracked it with the Forerunner, and shittier runkeeper.

Me crossing the finish line, finally! The image is from marathonfoto.com, which seems to be incredibly overpriced and poorly made.

I still don’t know if I actually enjoy the running, but it’s convenient. It’s fun at times, and I mostly enjoy being active. It’s flexible, I can do it in the city with very minimal equipment. No bike to store, etc. I also enjoy the goal of having a race to work toward and keep me focused, I’ll need to find another. I think I’m going to start doing more interval training, maybe 20 minutes with 5-10 cycles of sprinting, with jogging between. Mix in a longer run on the weekend and it seems like a reasonable approach.

Scones, makes about a dozen.

Dry Ingredients:

• 2 cups flour (up to half whole wheat, if you want)
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Add 1 & 1/4 cups cream.

Mix with a fork until it forms a loose mass. Mold it into shape by hand, but be careful not to overmix.

Bake at 425 F until lightly brown on top and it passes the toothpick test. In a proper oven this is usually around 15 min. In a toaster oven it might be more like 20.

Fishboy Ep 1
Fishboy Ep 2
Fishboy Ep 3
Fishboy Ep 4
Fishboy Ep 5
Fishboy Ep 6

The short version is that I’m moving back to DC/MD. Right now I’m in a holiday inn in Evanston, Wyoming (at least I’m not in Utah anymore!).

For those interested, check out my MPG (since I first bought the car). Spikes and dips generally due to poor accounting.