December 21, 2012

The view from inside, post-Draco.

Back view, the morning after the big blizzard:

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Front view, showing meticulous Meademanship accomplished late last night:

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Feel free to treat the comments section here as an open thread. And if you have any shopping to do — and a bit of love for this blog — please consider doing your shopping at Amazon and entering through the Althouse portal. This close to Christmas, it's a good time to think about gift cards and Kindle books (which can be sent by email and scheduled to arrive on Christmas day).

46 comments:

Paddy O said...

I finished writing my dissertation yesterday. Unofficially submitted it to my adviser for comments.

Started writing in early February.

99,953 words. 313 pages.

Probably wrote about double that overall this last year, but a lot got cut and refocused. Such is writing.

Ann Althouse said...

Congratulations.

Good luck.

Tank said...

No offense, but that blizzard looks like an ordinary NJ snowstorm.

That is some nice Meadework.

I actually bought some Amazon stuff through the "portal." Don't tell my wife (OK, I already confessed).

Sorun said...

Shoveling snow can be enjoyable at night, but it sucks on a bright day like today.

And it really wasn't a blizzard, which has visibility and possibly other criteria. Maybe Madman will correct me.

MadisonMan said...

Paddy O -- congrats! Submit it to a journal too! I know several people who submitted their theses to Journals, and got them published, pre-defense. It's nice to be able to say to a persnickety Committee member I understand your complaint, but I don't think it's important, and neither did the reviewers.

Just make sure you have Advisor buy-in, although if you're advisor isn't fully supporting your research now, he or she is a fool.

campy said...

No offense, but that blizzard looks like an ordinary NJ snowstorm

A light dusting, at best.

ndspinelli said...

Congrats PaddyO! Doi you have a portal? And, that's not a gay question!!

ndspinelli said...

NTTAWWT

Fprawl said...

Sorry this is long.
I exchanged backdoor emails with a nationally known columnist yesterday. He thought I was a blogger who had insulted his (liberal) view on gun control via heated tweets. I corrected him, and he did engage in a little bit of back and forth. I will not say who it was, I don’t think it would be right, but it is a name that you would all recognize.
I saw the famous columnist’s tweet in the bloggers blog, and it was extremely vile, attributing murderous intentions to NRA supporters.
I gave the columnist a little advice, telling him that I didn’t tweet, but it seems to me that it is foolish to send someone a message punching back when people can’t see the punch he took. It is asking for the instigator to post the tweet out of context.
I told him that I didn’t think that magazine restrictions, assault weapons bans, or background checks would do any good regarding school shootings. He stated, “My view is that the current solutions most gun control advocates favor are really quite modest and would earn vast majority support if gun enthusiasts were not in the grip of NRA propaganda designed to prevent them from understanding what gun control advocates are actually proposing...”
I thanked him for his time, and told him that I welcomed a vote, I would accept whatever was passed.
I thought about it last night, and I have concluded that young whippersnappers don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground.
In my 60 years, I have been a construction worker, restaurant owner, Paramedic, cabinet maker, chemical plant worker, and physicist.
As a Paramedic for 7 years, I have brought people into this world and watched innumerable ones die.
I have had knives and guns pulled on me by miscreants and druggies with only a radio in my hand until the cops got there. I have ridden 12 miles to the hospital with a cop buddy dying from a shot in the head during a bank robbery.
In other words, I have more knowledge in my little finger about life, reality, and the world than all the snot-nosed little twats at the NYT, Washington Post, and every other liberal outpost in the newspaper world.
I am not in the grip of the NRA, you little shit. I haven’t been a member since I was a Boy Scout (Eagle, btw). I am old and wise and I sure as hell know more than some kid whose entire life experience has been journalism school and sitting in a bar solving the world’s problems with a bunch of peers who also don’t have a clue.
I’ll just sit here see what transpires, and hope for the best.
That’s all.
Merry Christmas.

edutcher said...

Meademanship?

What about some Althousewomanship to go with it?

Or are you standing by with CPR and the EMTs on speed dial?

Tank said...

No offense, but that blizzard looks like an ordinary NJ snowstorm.

SE PA, too. I was expecting snow up to your noses.

PS What Ann said, Paddy.

MadisonMan said...

And it really wasn't a blizzard, which has visibility and possibly other criteria. Maybe Madman will correct me.

It wasn't. NWS criteria are, if I'm remembering right, 1/4-mile visibility and 35-mph winds for 3 straight hours. Yesterday's snow was too wet to blow around and the winds didn't quite make it.

Criteria may have been met in, say, rural Sauk County -- but there aren't airports there taking observations.

FWIW -- Canadian Blizzard Criteria are somewhat less stringent, and this Wisconsin storm did meet Canadian Blizzard Criteria :)

Anonymous said...

Too bad a bunch of lefty Madison Occutards didn't freeze to death in it.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

13 inches of snow, at least, this morning and still snowing heavily. We expect this to last through Sunday. Avalanche warnings in the mountains above us. The freeways are shut down for now but may open up for vehicles with 4x4 or chains but not to truck traffic. That's gonna hurt the truckers and obviously no food deliveries to the stores until next week sometime.

I'm surprised that we still have power today, since the power was flickering on and off at 3am making my surge protectors and power back ups squawk.

So....just in case I'm doing all the laundry I can...while I can, loading up the dishwasher, getting the oil lamps and candles handy, grinding several days of coffee beans to use in the vintage, Pyrex perk coffee pot.

Hubby is still going to keep his coffee date with the guys at the local coffee shop. Must keep up on the gossip you know. He is warming up the tractor now to plow the driveway.

I love snow days :-) Time to make some fudge and lemon cookies and get the book that I'm reading so I can watch the snow and the birds eating the cracked corn that we throw out for them.

Dust Bunny Queen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ndspinelli said...

DBQ, Nice comment. Did Jimmy crack that corn? I really don't care.

rhhardin said...

If you shovel paths through the back yard as well, dogs can go out and pee without going underwater.

Meade said...

in which DBQ gives prepper a good name.

Rose said...

Fprawl - AMEN.

rhhardin said...

Backyard dog path from 2010 (video).

Meade said...

Ha ha - I remember that one, rh. One of my favorites.

BarrySanders20 said...

I re-entered the Althouse portal and my secretary enjoyed it.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Know what really is beginning to piss me off? Well, I'm going to tell you anyway.

Some of my old recipes have ingredients like "one jar of marshmallow creme" or "one small can of tuna" etc. and NOW since they are shrinking all of the packages, I'm not sure if the NEW smaller jar is equal to the old jar. So NOW to be able to make the fudge old recipe I have to open TWO jars and spoon out some from the second one and have a 3/4 full jar of marshmallow creme laying around. I guess I have to make hot chocolate now and put the unused marsmallow fluff in it. What a horrible hardship :-)

People say cats don't have expressions. You should have seen the look of surprise and dismay on my cat's face when she insisted she wanted out and saw the snow on the deck and came to a screeching halt at the doorstep. Nevermind!!!!......she says.

john said...

DBQ, recipes are not stoichiometry.

They're inspirational. Like a prayer.

john said...

With the exception of yeast measurements.

edutcher said...

Dust Bunny Queen said...

People say cats don't have expressions. You should have seen the look of surprise and dismay on my cat's face when she insisted she wanted out and saw the snow on the deck and came to a screeching halt at the doorstep. Nevermind!!!!......she says.

I get that from the Yorks all the time.

Rusty said...

I'm looking at the dusting of snow on the Sierra Nevada mountains. From the beach.
For all I care the house in Illinois could be under six feet of snow.
Ill worry about it January.

Chip Ahoy said...

Don't you think it's strange that things come out to even cups?

And when I do see things like:

"One cup + 1 tablespoon"

I think, "r u f'n f'n me in the a h ?"

For sometimes I think the rudest things in letters. And for the life of me I cannot just finish the thought without adding"

"because if you are, you've got ten minutes to knock it off."

Just to be perverse.

Because that's how perverse being precise about recipes is. But to address your situation directly, I have a similar thing with tomato paste. now I freeze the extra by tablespoonful on wax paper and put the frozen discs in a plastic snack bag. Tinned jalapeƱos too, but don't freeze those, they disintegrate. Although disintegrated jalapeƱos paste might have a use too. The tomato paste discs are great for all kind of things like fortifying gravy. In lieu of tomato paste in tubes like toothpaste, my closest grocery doesn't carry it.

james conrad said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
james conrad said...

The other day i used Amazon search box on right hand side of your home page to buy something and wonder if that works and is the same thing as using portal. Where is the portal, i dont see it except in this post?

Ruth Anne Adams said...

Meade-ticulous.

Not to be confused with Meade-iculous. Cuz that's a thing, too.

james conrad said...

ohhhh, ok, i it see now, the search box is gone & amazon rolling ads are there. I am guessing THATS the portal now, duh!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Chip Ahoy said...

Your snow path anecdotes reminded me of something that happened at the house on Warren St.

A snow path was cleared the width of a blower. My black Belgian encountered a similar dog also black, also working group type, but a lot older and not agile. They were nose to nose on the channeled path with no room to maneuver and of course they must sniff butts. My dog leap over the old dog and sniffed it's butt and it had only enough room to turn around. But my dog can fantastically turn around in mid air. Over the other dogs head. And land on her feet facing. So she hopped back and forth over the older dog sniffing it's ass and teasing it's nose and all it could do is just stand there in the, its movement blocked. Finally It whimpered pathetically and went home, and my dog is all, what? what? what? come on!

Chip Ahoy said...

James, also at top in the masthead.

Chip Ahoy said...

Speaking of the A-A portal,

Don't take this wrong, but you might want to throw on a grooming kit for yourself to your order.

The other day I reached down and felt the bottom of my foot and it felt like sandpaper down there on the bottom. #80 sandpaper. and I was all wtf? How did that happen? So later I had a nice long hot bath and used a scrappy thing to apply a self pedicure, kind of.

And that went on so long the water went cold so I drained half of it and refilled it back to hot and resumed.

And when I was done and dried off my hoofies were so smooth I was sliding around all over the place. Dangerous actually. I was standing there having a wee and my legs slid apart separating like scissors.

And that reminded me of this guy I saw with his girlfriend last summer. In a crowd. Everybody wearing shorts. This guy had the gnarliest feet I ever saw on a human. Raptor talons, dark yellow curved, gross as hell, appeared diseased and in sandals! And his girlfriend was so attractive too. I was bewildered at that incongruity. How could she possibly tolerate that? Certainly he'd claw her to death accidentally just moving around in bed. He was much taller than her. His own legs should be clawed up from self mutilation. It totally grossed me out and I thought that one simple thing would fix that. Someone has to tell him to take care of his own feet. Is that a thing guys forget? Do yourself and your sweetie a favor and pedicure yourself. Kits available on Amazon so it's easy enough. And get a nose hair trimmer while you're at it. Jesus Christ, it's like a spider is crawling out of your nose.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Since when have they started naming blizzards, anyway? And after J.K. Rowling characters, yet.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

@ Chip. Good tip. I use a plastic ice cube tray to freeze cubes of extra tomato paste and tomato sauce and then put them into a zip lock bag.

Dumbplumber is very popular today with his tractor and a big chain, pulling people out of the ditches and helping them clear the snow berms left at the end of their driveways by the County plowing the roads. One guy ran into the house and gave him a boxed bottle of Glenlivet. Woo hoo! Score!

Meade said...

Ruth Anne Adams said...
"Meade-ticulous."

And Meade-tickleous.

Another thing, too, also.

Paddy O said...

Thanks all!

MM, my advisor is definitely on my side with it, so I think it will be smooth sailing as long as I get all the myriad of technical details/formatting right.

Last year I went to Germany and spent a few days with the main topic of my studies, and ran by him my ideas and had an overall good set of conversations. I have audio of those conversations, so if someone wants to push back I can go right to the source.

ND, I have a blog, but I don't update it too regularly, especially the last year. My writing time has gone elsewhere.

Ann Althouse said...

"The other day i used Amazon search box on right hand side of your home page to buy something and wonder if that works and is the same thing as using portal. Where is the portal, i dont see it except in this post?"

Yes, that works as a portal. Also in the subheading to the blog, under the big "Althouse," you can click on "shop Amazon," and that's a portal.

Ann Althouse said...

"And Meade-tickleous."

Only I know that an actual tick is involved.

Trashhauler said...

Numbing cold temperatures, and the roaring sound of wind blowing at 45-50 knots. Yet no snow. Welcome to winter in St Louis, where your eight year old child might as, "What do they mean when they talk about a 'White Christmas'?"

Gigantic waste of a weather system, if you ask me.

ALP said...

Finally remembered to use the portal. There are some Scandinavian-style, heart-shaped waffles in my future.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Fans help Packers clear Lambeau Field of snow for Sunday's game

Impressive.

Elliott A said...

Wow Ann! Meade even shovels the grass!

Ann Althouse said...

There are some paths thar are part of the design.

john said...

Ann Althouse said...
There are some paths thar are part of the design
.

I suspect it's because of the way car doors open.