Thoughts On A Sunday

The first taste of winter is quickly melting away, with temperatures in the mid to upper 40's, plenty of sunshine, and the possibility of rain later in the week. At least it's cold enough at night for the ski areas in New Hampshire to make snow. A number of them have already opened for the season, though a little bit later than some had planned.

Despite this late start into winter weather, I have a feeling that we'll see a lot more snow this winter as compared to last. At least I hope so.

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The New England Patriots played the Miami Dolphins down in Miami. One of our favorite waitresses from the Paugus Diner accompanied members of the local Elks club to the game. As she told the WP Parents “Look for a woman in pink among 156 'horny' men. That'll be me!”

But it sucks that the Patriots didn't bring their 'A' game to Miami. Hell, they didn't even bring their 'B' game. They were shut out for the first time in four seasons by a Miami that isn't all that good this year.

You better believe that Bill Belichick will be giving them one hell of a talking to after the game. It also didn't help that they may have lost yet another offense player in Ben Watson due to injury.

The Patriots can't seem to get a break this season.

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The next cycle of the political silly season is already in full swing, with an ever growing number of Presidential wannabes visiting New Hampshire for an ever increasing number of events. As I mentioned in an earlier post today, Senator Barak Obama of Illinois was here to speak to Granite State Democrats in Manchester and Portsmouth. Senator Evan Bayh has also been here, as has Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack. Hillary Clinton has visited yet, but I believe that will only be a matter of time.

The number of Republican hopefuls visiting New Hampshire hasn't quite equaled that of the Democrats, but they've still been making the trek. George Pataki, Mitt Romney (who also has a summer place on Lake Winnipesaukee), Rudi Giuliani, and Senator John McCain have all made visits over the past month to support the state Republican party and to 'press the flesh' with possible future supporters.

The New Hampshire Primary is still just over a year away but already the candidate field is starting to fill.

It's going to be interesting around here for the next year or so. It looks like it will soon be time to resurrect the ever more obscure Paugus Diner Poll^©.

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It was while Deb was preparing her wonderful lasagna for tonight's repast with Submarine Tim, his boss, Dawn, and their two boys that the subject of kitchens, and particularly stoves, came to mind.

I have always liked gas stoves, particularly their fine and instant heat control. Deb prefers the glass topped electric stoves, particularly for the ease of clean up after cooking. It was with the subject of gas stoves in my thoughts that I came across an article about stoves in the local Sunday paper. The article talks about how many kitchens today have stoves that are too much for the intended use. Some folks look more at the aesthetics rather than how it is they actually will use it.

It's the norm for top-shelf kitchens to feature the biggest and baddest of mega-BTU (British thermal unit) behemoths. Often the stoves are commercial-grade gas models with enough combustion to prepare presidential banquets. But it's like igniting a blast furnace to brown a grilled-cheese sandwich.

How many of you out there have watched ABC's Extreme Makeover – Home Edition? How many times have we seen the kitchens in these new homes include top of the line commercial grade gas stoves? Far too many. People remodeling their kitchens also make the same mistake – too much stove.

It also doesn't help that gas stoves are less efficient than electric or induction stoves.

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If you think that you'll never have enough storage on your computer, think again. 3-D optical storage will allow unheard of data densities, the equivalent of storing 500 movies on a single disk.

Not bad.

(H/T Dean's World)

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter is trying to make its way here, firewood stacks are large, and where every (relatively) warm day is seen as one less day we have to run the furnace.