Pappa, what's a Walkie-Talkie?

My (very-soon-to-be) four year old son asks "Pappa, what's a Walkie-Talkie?"

He has been studying a small piece of lego that appeared in a set he just got. Having just asked what it was, and still not understanding, he asks more questions.

After two or three more answers ("It is a radio", "It lets two people talk to each other", "It uses batteries and radio waves", ...) he ponders for a moment.

Then insight strikes, "Oh! It's like a cell phone."

"Yes, exactly, it's like a cell phone." (I wince internally. How can I explain that cellphones are thousand of times more complex. How they depend on cellular infra structure, transmission towers, computers. How they work across the world, while walkie-talkies sometimes have problems reaching across the block.) "Yes" I say. "Just like a cell phone."

I feel very old.

Then he looks at me with a worried look. "They are not real, are they, pappa?"

"No, they are real."

Looking at his eyes I can tell that he isn't quite sure he believes me. Why use this clumsy device when you can just use the phone? I don't even think he realizes that some phones uses wires, as all we have are wireless handsets and cell phones, except for a base-station in the kitchen.

Some day I will have to explain it to him that once upon a time, just like there was a time when there was only mail, no email, there was a time when all phones had wires...

Until then I just sit here and feel old.

Morels

My birthday gift from my father-in-law this year, was a box of fresh morels.
What a wonderful gift. My only problem was to figure out how to best use them. After thinking about a bit I settled on an omelet.
The omelet might be a plain dish, but the simple eggs are such a neutral canvas to build the flavor on.
Here is what I did (as with all cooking I do, I just sort of wing it, so no exact measurements are provided):

• I cut the morels into tiny pieces, except for a few pieces that I left larger to provide texture.
• I slowly and lightly fried them in a bit of butter, just enough to bring out the aroma and to start caramelizing the butter (but not all the way).
• In a bowl, I mixed some half-and-half and some soft plain chevre until it was thick and creamy. (Next time I do it I will make it even thicker than I did this time. It easily gets runny when it gets warm.)
• I poured the morels from the pan I had fried them in, into the half-and-half/chevre mixture while leaving a bit of the butter in the pan (since the pan I used was going to be the one I made the omelets in).
• I mixed the morels and the chevre mixture and tasted—several times—to make sure it was right.
• Then I cracked the eggs (six eggs for two omelets) and added a bit of milk, a pinch of salt, and a touch of pepper. I also added a small amount of thyme, basil, and oregano.
• Then I just made two omelets, put the morel filling in the middle, tipped it on to plates...

...and then we ate it! (Excuse me for a moment. I'm beginning to drool in my keyboard.)
Thanks Ron!

PS

Ron, if you bring some more, I'll make you one too. :-)

Update 2012-08-29: Sigh. Normally I would never update a posting this old, but it have come to my attention that morels (wonderful, succulent aromatic morels) have neurotoxins that don't go away when cooking. They might not get you right away, but every time you eat some, there is some damage to your liver etc.. Not much, but in the end it adds up. I'm going to miss my morels.

Out of Phase

Some times you just end up being awake at the wrong time. Some times this persists for a longer period. Then you end up in that twilight zone that is "reverse phase".

I think I live there most of the time. The quiet hours of the night are so nice, and I don't mind at all sleeping during the day—except for when it's so warm that the AC can't keep up.

Obviously this is not a very social position, so I do my best to not do it. My son Einar is a day person out of necessity. You don't screw around with the bedtime of a three-almost-four year old without getting swiftly and severely punished. So since I want to spend quality time with him I have to be up during the day.

I just wish there was a way of toggle the phase without so much pain...

Get Thunderbird—Reclaim Your Inbox

Thunderbird 0.7 (the lightweight but oh so capable mail reader from the Mozilla team) just came out. It is the anti-dote to Outlook; small, few bugs, extensible, open source, etc.. What more could you want?

I'm so happy with it I even added a button to the blog page.

(I should probably get one for FireFox too. That browser is the bees knees.)

Wasting time

OK, so now I just wasted a couple of hours fiddling with the template and tweaking minor irrelevant things that nobody will ever notice.

The only significant discovery was that the <$BlogOwnerFullName$> blog variable appears broken. The work-around appears to be to use "<$BlogOwnerFirstName$> <$BlogOwnerLastName$>" instead.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, just ignore it, or go here to find the documentation about it. It's no big deal unless you are a software geek like me who has to fiddle with everything.

Now I have to figure out if I want to continue using blogger or put something on my own site (or host the blogger blog on my site).

After that—and I'll give it a few days to see how it works—I will flesh out the site with some pictures etc..

...oh well...

Since there is no real way of avoiding that dreaded "first post" I might as well get done with it.

There! Done!