The Astonishing 360 degree Slinky Video Screen at the U2 Concert

The whole stage setup weighs 170 tons, apparently. "Sunday Bloody Sunday" came off very well.

Naan Sequitur

I suppose you'd call it naan, anyway. I made bread dough (1/4 whole wheat, 3/4 all purpose flour) and kneaded lots of fresh rosemary into it. After a few hours' rise, I flattened it, made it nice and slippery with olive oil, ground some pepper over it and grilled it:


It was good. The grill has hot spots, so there were some burnt spots. Still, there's nothing like that rustic, smoky flavor that bread gets from being made on a fire.

Father's Day

Another Day at Work

Mrs. Cardinal

This cardinal is sitting on two eggs. She is no more than 20 feet from our back door.

Ausgezeichnetes Frühstück

I couldn't wait any longer. Bryan brought some home made liver wurst back from Germany, an it is heavenly. I suppose I should have had a nice Berliner-Weisse with it, but it was only 9 in the morning.

Dinner on the Deck

I've been busy. Or at least that's the word I choose for whatever I've been. My new (6 months now) job has been challenging, and I have been uncreative, antisocial and lacking in initiative.

That being said, I cooked lamb sirloins, scallops (wrapped in bacon and in smoke salmon), baked bread, and Lindz made a salad. That Pinot Noir was goood. Too bad they only made 750 cases of it.

IKEA is open in North Carolina

Lindz and I visited the new Charlotte IKEA store. It is grand and glorious, and it was crowded. Not once, not even once, were we out of earshot of a crying child. It was still the IKEA experience, but with the overcrowded amusement-park element added. One child was shrieking as if someone was sawing his arms off.

We got a cabinet for the television, something we had been talking about for a long time. The old wire shelves that housed the tv and stereo are gone, the last vestige of our leftover furniture that looked more appropriate for a college dorm. We're trying to make it look like adults live here.

Speaking of adulthood, why is it so hard to make a living? I'm very thankful to have a job, and particularly thankful to have moved from a lame job to a better job in such uncertain times. But it's sucking the life out of me. It's too bad one has to spend so much of one's life toiling as opposed to enjoying and creating. It's still early days, but this new job is definitely demanding. It's quite a bit better than the alternative.

I hope it gets better soon. Perhaps the U.S.A. will regain a bit of the backbone that it has always bragged about having. Some new roads, bridges and windmills might be a welcome side-effect to all this spending.

But enough about my struggle with the malaise of a broken world. How about some lamb?

This was an end slice. Deeper inside, it was stuffed with pureed dried apricots, rosemary, almonds, garlic, and I can't remember what else.

Yes We Can

Christmas in San Diego

People really enjoyed Lindz's marshmallows:

And people liked my bread. I was very flattered at how big a fuss they made at the Christmas party to which I brought it. It's a shame that people are always so astonished at the idea of someone making bread rather than buying it. I understand that reaction with the marshmallows ("You made marshmallows? How can you do that?"). Anyway, they enjoyed it, which is always the goal.

This is an onion ring at Stone Brewing's restaurant. It is as big as a doughnut. That's their Cali-Belgique ale in the glass there.
And here is the sunset, the last night there. Heartbreakingly perfect. Lindz and I got to feeling pretty emotional about San Diego. We ask ourselves why we don't live there, and it's an ongoing internal struggle.