Solar cooking at home, attempt 1

Almost all the cooking I do at Burning Man is solar, in a metal container (a flatter-rather-than-tall Indian spice tin that came with smaller cups for individual spices) set on a handy box (keeping it above the dusty ground), often with a bit of aluminum foil curved around it to help focus the sunlight a little (no clue if this is actually effective). However, I've only attempted couscous- or bulghur-based dishes, with foods that are ready to eat, or ready to eat with a bit of rehydration (Indian pouch meals, tuna, dehydrated vegetables, dried fruit, nuts, canned chickpeas, jarred artichoke hearts, tomato sauce, etc.).

Last year one of the houses across the street was getting new windows, and I snagged one of the old ones, with the vague idea that I could use it on the porch as part of a solar oven, or perhaps a dryer (better to use the sun than the oven, especially at certain temperatures!). However, this didn't get me to do more than mooch around on the internet in search of easy plans for cheap solar ovens, until yesterday, in an attempt to make lemonade out of the heat (as it were).

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Telephony

I have to admit, today's XKCD makes me feel old. I vividly remember dialing on a rotary phone, and being annoyed that my home phone number was skewed towards higher digits (a 1, a 2, three 7s, two 9s), since there was so much more wait time to let the dial spin between digits. And yes, only seven digits; way back then, the eastern half of the state was all one big happy area code; 508 split from 617 in 1988 (it was mostly amicable :-), and it was strange to have to pay attention to area codes when calls felt like they should be local. Now this seems a bit quaint, with all calls having their area codes (and more area codes popping up all the time, serving the needs of the "one person-at least one phone" society we've become, rather than the "one house-one phone" I grew up with*.

* Really, "one housing unit-one phone," but when I was small, I didn't know anyone who lived in an apartment or not-whole-house except for my elderly relatives in Florida in one of those old-people apartment complexes. Obviously, being far away and age segregated, that was Different than 'regular.'