Peas - Too Much Work

Yesterday I finally got the last plump pea pods from my garden. Time to rip out the plants.


I had been saving the pods until I got all of them or had enough to make a decent side dish for dinner - whichever came first.


Here are the measly results: about a cup and a half of various sizes of peas. That means you have to cook them in stages. The biggest ones cook first, then you add the mediums, then the teeny ones.


Next, the pods go into the food processor for compost material.


I like this picture with the steam rising from the just cooked peas! They're very good when you eat them, but IMHO it's very hard to tell them from frozen peas from the supermarket. This may be my last year for them. I could grow more plants next year, but they would use up too much garden space and only give me one crop. Off with their heads.

Addicted to this Map Quiz!

As I get ready to teach a class on Websites for maps and directions, I came across The Traveler IQ Challenge from TravelPod. I started trying it out myself (on North America, of course), and I was doing so well that I kept going on and on to the next level to see if I could keep it up. It was so much fun that I forgot about the time. Nothing like getting paid to enjoy yourself!

If you want to try it yourself, know that there are 13 different areas for the quiz and each one has several levels of difficulty. Be prepared to get sucked in!

Google Squared - I like it!

Have you seen the latest from Google? I just tried out Google Squared to get a handy list of vegetarian restaurants in Chicago - easy to read and compare addresses, features, etc. There's a handy Help Screen to explain it all. This might be useful for lots of stuff. Let's see.......

TED does it again

TED brings us Clay Shirky talking about the history of communication - and why we bloggers are part of the latest major change. It takes about 18 minutes, but well worth your time. This is really fascinating.

Foiled by the Converter Box

Last winter, we dutifully sent in for 2 coupons for converter boxes. We got the coupons in time to buy 2 boxes and installed one on our main tv in the basement family room. Everything seemed to work perfectly, and we were all ready for the first changeover date in February 09. Now that the analog signals were finally cut off on Friday, I went to the basement to see what our tv reception is like this morning between loads of laundry. Imagine my surprise to find out that the only stations that come in are channels 32 and above. The regular network channels and the PBS channel are all snow! Back to the drawing board...................

Really Interesting Book

Outliers: The Story of Success is one of the most interesting books that I've read in a long time. Here are some of the questions Gladwell asks:

• Why are people born in the first 3 months of the year generally more successful in life than the rest of us? ("Successful" meaning able to accomplish more in a field of endeavor.)
• Why are men from southern states less able to tolerate aggressive behavior from others than northern men?
  
• Why was it really dangerous to fly on any Asian airline flight until only a few years ago?

His curious answers to these questions kept me glued to the book. It's too late to change some of the decisions I made for my children when they were little, but I definitely would have done some things differently had I read this then.

Polio and Our Family

As if WWII wasn't making life terrible enough, Americans also had to live through many scary years of polio epidemics. One of my uncles, who was in the early years of high school at the time, caught the disease. He suffered some serious effects, but with surgery and rehabilitation, he was able to recover well enough to finish high school. He graduated from college, married and had children, and had a good career in sales. Sadly, in later years, he has experienced disability due to post-polio syndrome.

Knowing all this, I was really interested in finding The Polio Crusade from PBS, which aired a program on the topic last February. I didn't see it then, but you can watch it with a link on the site. By 1950, the Salk vaccine was discovered and I got it as a vaccination shot, unlike the current form of liquid dose. (I'm one of the remaining few who also sport a scar on my upper arm from a smallpox vaccination.) Anyway, just seeing the photos from the PBS promotion is a sobering experience.

Here's to my uncle, who remains cheerful and upbeat despite all. Polio didn't get those good humor muscles!