Disparate stuff
Jun. 25th, 2007 03:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidThis got long...
A little over a week ago there was a tree walk around Harvard Yard. I wasn't taking notes, obviously, so what I remember is mostly little bits and pieces.
This Shabbat afternoon there was a fair about solar power at the Vinal Street Growing Center, outside Union Square. There were people with information about solar panels (and something the functional equivalent of them, but cheaper; I didn't find out what), and some MIT folks showing off their design for the house they're entering in a solar competition in DC (that I'd seen at the Cambridge Science Fair), and there were solar ovens.
Of course, food-obsessed as I am, I gravitated towards the ovens. I'd heard of solar ovens before, but never seen any. The coolest one was this Tulsi one. For the longest time I thought the four circles inside were some kind of burner, rather than pots that were cooking rice, lentils, and curried tofu. There was another, a trapezoidal prism (sloped surface on top and clear), with three reflective 'wings' to help focus the sunlight. And the coolest low-tech one was made out of a pizza box lined with foil. It wouldn't be good for high heat stuff, but for slow-cooker-type things, it looks like it works pretty well.
My porch gets too much sun for me to go out mid-afternoon on sunny days.... maybe I can use that. Er, if I didn't already feel like I have too much on my plate right now as it is. I need to finish a couple of things before starting yet another project.
Thursday I went to an author reading at the OSMH about the lighthouses of Massachusetts (one of a series about the lighthouses of the different New England states). Jeremy D'Entremont gave lots of details about the physical lighthouses and told stories about the keepers, plus showed pictures and one or two historical video clips. (More about New England lighthouses here.)
There were many stories of storms and floods (no surprise), storms that swept keepers or others in their family away, storms that ran huge ships aground, and more. The most terrifying of them to me was the story of the first Minot's Ledge Light, inaugurated January 1, 1850. It was in the middle of the water, no land around it at all, and it had been decided that it was too expensive to build a stone lighthouse out there. Instead, there was one made with open iron work, to let the water wash through rather than break, the theory being that it would be buffeted less. Except that it didn't work; the first keeper, Isaac Dunham, lasted 10 months before he quit, noting that the top of the tower swayed two feet from vertical in the wind (!). And the next year, it was blown over in a storm, killing the two assistants who were manning it at the time. The replacement lighthouse was made of stone, and was finished by 1860. It was still in the middle of the water, so all food and fresh water had to be stored inside, and it wasn't always easy to restock. A happier note from the 1930s or later [missing the year in my notes]: one of the last keepers went back to visit when he was old, and surprised the heck out of his daughter by diving 60 feet off the tower to the water below.
The Scituate Light, inaugurated in 1812, is the oldest extant lighthouse in the country. The famous story about this lighthouse took place during the War of 1812. The keeper and most of his family had taken a trip somewhere, and two daughters in their early 20s were left in charge. The British army approached to take it over, but the girls played a fife and drum as loudly as they could, and the British thought there was a large force there, so they left.
The Long Island Head Light (a variety of buildings, inaugurated in 1819, 1844, 1881, and 1901) was the first cast iron lighthouse in the country (1844 edition).
The Boston Lighthouse was inaugurated in 1716 (the first in the nation), blown up by the British in 1776, and rebuilt in 1783. In the 1930s, there were three families living on the island, with the first children who'd ever lived there (the keeper's wife had 9 children by the time she was 27!). In 1989, there was federal legislation working through Congress to make it automated (like so many other lighthouses), but that was blocked. Instead, there was a civilian keeper, and the first woman, Sally Snowman.
And more stories. Etc. Plus there will be some cruises including lighthouses run by the Friends of the Boston Harbor Islands (both day and evening cruises).
A while ago, I got email from JOFA about a new bentcher coming out, and I could get one free by sending an email. So I did, and promptly forgot about it.
This weekend, it arrived, and it's pretty nice. It's bigger than a regular paperback, and has lots of extra (read: non-standard) stuff in it (filling 224 pages), including transliteration and translation of everything in Hebrew, techinas (for taking challah, for candlelighting, etc.), very detailed information about all the Shabbat/yom tov rituals (from all the different kiddushim to nagelwasser and motzi, through havdalah), zimun for women (as well as a lot of bentching detail I haven't seen in other bentchers), rituals for welcoming a child, things to do for Yom ha-Shoah and Yom ha-Atzmaut, and more.
The layout is reasonable, if one doesn't mind unjustified paragraphing when the Hebrew and the transliteration are side by side. I like that they use shading in both Hebrew and English for the possible insertions for bentching, too.
I haven't used it yet, and I'm not sure whether it's a bit too unwieldy for regular use or not, but it looks like a great resource.
I came home from this week's Shabbat perambulation to the sound of violin and recorder music outside. I went onto the porch and shamelessly listened in as my backyard neighbors had musicians playing. It didn't take long to figure out that they were figuring out what to play for a wedding, as strains of many familiar wedding songs were interspersed with klezmer-style music I didn't know. It was a little strange, the live music for a Jewish wedding playing on Shabbat, but very enjoyable.
Then yesterday, I came home to hear a party in the backyard neighbor's yard, with some fancy food, and men wearing those shiny kippot that proclaim "special occasion." The wedding was that afternoon! No wonder the bride had seemed a little stressed the day before! Unfortunately, I was too late to hear any of the music, so I don't know what they chose.
Random link of the day: there's national and international air guitar competitions? What?
A little over a week ago there was a tree walk around Harvard Yard. I wasn't taking notes, obviously, so what I remember is mostly little bits and pieces.
- They keep the elms of the Yard from developing Dutch elm disease by injecting them with fungicide each year. The disease doesn't start until a tree is mature, so they don't bother doing that with the newest transplants.
- There's a cedar of Lebanon growing by Lehman Hall. It's a three-story building, and the tree was planted when it was already as tall as the building (only Harvard...). The ground at the bottom is mounded up some, because they couldn't put it deeper without interfering with some pipes (hot water?). The pinecones take two years to come to maturity.
- I finally found out what those trees with odd, hazy sorts of not-really-flowers are: smoke trees.
- We compared Ohio buckeyes (no, not the chocolate-peanut butter confections) and its cousin the red horsechestnut growing across the path. Similar leaves, but the former will always have five lobes/leaf, while the latter may have more (though always an odd number).
- One corner has a number of dawn redwoods, which are not true redwoods at all, but some kind of ancient tree that astonished scientists when it was discovered growing somewhere in the wilds of China.
- There's a couple of Kentucky coffeetrees, so named because they produce a seed pod that desperate settlers tried to make coffee out of. Apparently it wasn't very successful coffee substitute.
- There's a map of all the tree species in the Yard. Very cool.
This Shabbat afternoon there was a fair about solar power at the Vinal Street Growing Center, outside Union Square. There were people with information about solar panels (and something the functional equivalent of them, but cheaper; I didn't find out what), and some MIT folks showing off their design for the house they're entering in a solar competition in DC (that I'd seen at the Cambridge Science Fair), and there were solar ovens.
Of course, food-obsessed as I am, I gravitated towards the ovens. I'd heard of solar ovens before, but never seen any. The coolest one was this Tulsi one. For the longest time I thought the four circles inside were some kind of burner, rather than pots that were cooking rice, lentils, and curried tofu. There was another, a trapezoidal prism (sloped surface on top and clear), with three reflective 'wings' to help focus the sunlight. And the coolest low-tech one was made out of a pizza box lined with foil. It wouldn't be good for high heat stuff, but for slow-cooker-type things, it looks like it works pretty well.
My porch gets too much sun for me to go out mid-afternoon on sunny days.... maybe I can use that. Er, if I didn't already feel like I have too much on my plate right now as it is. I need to finish a couple of things before starting yet another project.
Thursday I went to an author reading at the OSMH about the lighthouses of Massachusetts (one of a series about the lighthouses of the different New England states). Jeremy D'Entremont gave lots of details about the physical lighthouses and told stories about the keepers, plus showed pictures and one or two historical video clips. (More about New England lighthouses here.)
There were many stories of storms and floods (no surprise), storms that swept keepers or others in their family away, storms that ran huge ships aground, and more. The most terrifying of them to me was the story of the first Minot's Ledge Light, inaugurated January 1, 1850. It was in the middle of the water, no land around it at all, and it had been decided that it was too expensive to build a stone lighthouse out there. Instead, there was one made with open iron work, to let the water wash through rather than break, the theory being that it would be buffeted less. Except that it didn't work; the first keeper, Isaac Dunham, lasted 10 months before he quit, noting that the top of the tower swayed two feet from vertical in the wind (!). And the next year, it was blown over in a storm, killing the two assistants who were manning it at the time. The replacement lighthouse was made of stone, and was finished by 1860. It was still in the middle of the water, so all food and fresh water had to be stored inside, and it wasn't always easy to restock. A happier note from the 1930s or later [missing the year in my notes]: one of the last keepers went back to visit when he was old, and surprised the heck out of his daughter by diving 60 feet off the tower to the water below.
The Scituate Light, inaugurated in 1812, is the oldest extant lighthouse in the country. The famous story about this lighthouse took place during the War of 1812. The keeper and most of his family had taken a trip somewhere, and two daughters in their early 20s were left in charge. The British army approached to take it over, but the girls played a fife and drum as loudly as they could, and the British thought there was a large force there, so they left.
The Long Island Head Light (a variety of buildings, inaugurated in 1819, 1844, 1881, and 1901) was the first cast iron lighthouse in the country (1844 edition).
The Boston Lighthouse was inaugurated in 1716 (the first in the nation), blown up by the British in 1776, and rebuilt in 1783. In the 1930s, there were three families living on the island, with the first children who'd ever lived there (the keeper's wife had 9 children by the time she was 27!). In 1989, there was federal legislation working through Congress to make it automated (like so many other lighthouses), but that was blocked. Instead, there was a civilian keeper, and the first woman, Sally Snowman.
And more stories. Etc. Plus there will be some cruises including lighthouses run by the Friends of the Boston Harbor Islands (both day and evening cruises).
A while ago, I got email from JOFA about a new bentcher coming out, and I could get one free by sending an email. So I did, and promptly forgot about it.
This weekend, it arrived, and it's pretty nice. It's bigger than a regular paperback, and has lots of extra (read: non-standard) stuff in it (filling 224 pages), including transliteration and translation of everything in Hebrew, techinas (for taking challah, for candlelighting, etc.), very detailed information about all the Shabbat/yom tov rituals (from all the different kiddushim to nagelwasser and motzi, through havdalah), zimun for women (as well as a lot of bentching detail I haven't seen in other bentchers), rituals for welcoming a child, things to do for Yom ha-Shoah and Yom ha-Atzmaut, and more.
The layout is reasonable, if one doesn't mind unjustified paragraphing when the Hebrew and the transliteration are side by side. I like that they use shading in both Hebrew and English for the possible insertions for bentching, too.
I haven't used it yet, and I'm not sure whether it's a bit too unwieldy for regular use or not, but it looks like a great resource.
I came home from this week's Shabbat perambulation to the sound of violin and recorder music outside. I went onto the porch and shamelessly listened in as my backyard neighbors had musicians playing. It didn't take long to figure out that they were figuring out what to play for a wedding, as strains of many familiar wedding songs were interspersed with klezmer-style music I didn't know. It was a little strange, the live music for a Jewish wedding playing on Shabbat, but very enjoyable.
Then yesterday, I came home to hear a party in the backyard neighbor's yard, with some fancy food, and men wearing those shiny kippot that proclaim "special occasion." The wedding was that afternoon! No wonder the bride had seemed a little stressed the day before! Unfortunately, I was too late to hear any of the music, so I don't know what they chose.
Random link of the day: there's national and international air guitar competitions? What?
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no subject
Date: 2007-06-25 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-26 01:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-26 12:14 am (UTC)How does one get copies? (commerically, even...)
Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2007-06-26 01:32 pm (UTC)It's by KTAV, but I didn't find it when I looked at their site, nor was the ISBN recognized by Amazon. There's a paper order form with it (discounts if there's an order of 50 or more, I think), and you're welcome to check it out this Shabbat.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-26 02:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-26 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-26 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-26 04:58 am (UTC)I like techinas for eating falafel. *grin*
no subject
Date: 2007-06-26 01:27 pm (UTC)I did ponder using "techinot", but something about techina lends itself to English pluralization.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-26 02:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-26 02:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-26 02:25 pm (UTC)