THE WEISS CHRONICLES

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Operation Blue Bin is Secured 

Our  normal recycle pickup was postponed from Monday (1/19) to Tuesday 1/20 because of MLK day.  Since one of our bins was beginning to look like image one, I ordered a new bin (like image two - yes they are bigger) and a pick up of the old bin. The order was on line at the county's web site.

The site said to put the old one out the next Monday (1-26) at 700am. However, that day was a snowy one and, perhaps because of the press of the snow work, the county didn't pick up the old one and deposit the new one until Tuesday 1-27.

I had jokingly told Ann and George that Operation Blue Bin should be compared to Operation Overlord (actually the initial part of Overlord, that is the landings on Normandy Beach, was called Operation Neptune). G's response to my analogy was to email back, "the eyes of god are upon us", which is a quote from then Supreme Allied Commander Eisenhower a few days before Op Neptune.

Oddly enough, D-Day (the day of Op Neptune) was initially scheduled for June 5, 1944 before being postponed to June 6, 1944 because of the weather so my analogy was ironically apt.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 9:52 PM

Friday, January 23, 2015

Twenty Three Layer Cake 

At the catering company, they are working on a 23 layer cake. I separated about 120 eggs yesterday for this.

It will look a bit like the one in the images (second image is a close up of a cake done in a restaurant in Chicago) except the client wanted a marmalade frosting on top.

The chef here suggested that some of the mousse (light brown in the image) layers have coffee, hazelnut and almond flavors but apparently the client thinks some of the people at his event may be allergic to nuts so only 5 (every other one) of the mousse layers will be coffee.

As in the image, the layers will be pretty thin. Each one no more than about 1/2 inch. This is because neither cake nor mousse has much structural strength and if the cake were, say, two feet high, it would probably collapse from the weight.

UPDATE Feb 1: The 23 layer cake is for AIPAC's American-Israel Education Foundation, which, having been founded in 1990, is 25 years old (AIPAC was founded in 1960 so is over 50 years old). The frosting on top of the cake will itself be in two layers so, effectively it is a 25 layer pastry (even if the cake portion is only 23 layers).

posted by Martin Weiss  # 11:29 AM

Thursday, January 22, 2015

A Pretty and Inoffensive Snowfall 

We had about as nice a snowfall as it could be yesterday.

The snow began about noon and lasted until about 4pm so it didn't really interfere with peak pm traffic. About 3" in Balt. 2" in Rockville at our house and 1/2 inch at Natl airport. The snow pretty much just accumulated on grass and trees and not on streets and sidewalks.

The image is of the National Cathedral in NW Washington DC.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 11:48 AM

Sunday, January 18, 2015

First visit to Char Bar and reunion of sorts 

Ann and I went downtown to near Foggy Bottom today and met an old friend of mine and his spouse.

Patrick Smaldore (on left) and I served together in the Navy Reserve at times in the 80s and 90s (Elyette is next to Pat). Pat retired in 2013.

The food was pretty good except they had too much spice in the cole slaw and their fried onions had a bit too much oil for my taste (probably my tastes are not the norm in DC).

Anyway, the image was taken on Pat's phone camera by the bartender. Interestingly, they have a nice bar -its in the background of the image- but sadly still haven't gotten a liquor license  (they seem to have opened sometime in the summer of 2014).

posted by Martin Weiss  # 10:58 PM

A Visit to the Portrait Gallery 

After lunch on Jan 18, we stopped at the Portrait and American Art Gallery. Its right at one of the entrances to the Gallery Place Metro Rail stop so it was convenient (we parked at the Grosvenor Station lot, it is free on Sunday).

One of the special exhibits they had was on Grant and Lee. The first image shows a painting done in 1870 depicting the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse.

According to subsequent research, Grant's choice to not appear in dress uniform was not for ideological or politeness or such reasons but because his dress uniforms had not arrived at his HQ. Grant was, however, somewhat tactful on this occasion and issued an order to his troops to be quiet and neither hiss or otherwise disparage the Confederate entourage as they left the court house. 



The American Art Gallery had a special exhibit collection of paintings that were done for Time Magazine Covers in the 1960s. The second image is of the Beetles. It was done in 1967 and Time called it "The Beetles: Their New Incarnation".



The Third image is of a street scene It was done in the 1990s. It is by Richard Estes who is a leading practitioner of what is called photo-realism or hyper-realism or super-realism. 

This involves taking a photo and painting what it should have looked like (e.g., nicer sky, better reflections). This was another special exhibit at the museum. 


Before I saw this exhibit, I had no idea this school of art even existed.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 10:56 PM

Quick Fixes 

The SIM card in my cell phone died on 1-16. Today, I got to the at&t store at Westfield (also called Montgomery Mall) at about 1100am when they opened. By 1105 am there were many customers getting their problems recorded. By 1113 am all the problems had been solved and I was the only customer in the store. My problem was solved a few minutes later (new SIM card found, installed and a turn off turn on cycle or two).

Also, the sign at the store has been fixed and it reads, 'Authorized' not 'Auth rized'.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 6:24 PM

Friday, January 16, 2015

Visit to Chiropractor 

Well I never thought I would visit a chiropractor and for many years I considered them to be essentially folk medicine with no real basis.

However that has changed as science has established connections between chiropractic practice and positive health outcomes and also, more importantly, my health insurance company covers it. The insurance also specifically names the person I saw. Finally, I looked up her name on Yelp and there were some positive comments.

Anyway, I has some lower back and gluteal pain (as in image 1). One of the treatments involved a gadget like in image 2.

Its a few hours later and now I seem pretty free of pain. Let's see how long it lasts.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 4:23 PM

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Victim training 

On Jan 11, I went to a Montgomery County Training Center to act as a victim in Emergency Management Treatment (EMT) testing.

George had asked me to do this as he was taking the EMT test and test takers had been asked to bring a volunteer victim.

Similar to the first image, at one point I lay on a mat and pretended to be unconscious but responsive to pain. The team taking the test sort of did what they would have done in a real situation. Of course, as it was not real real, the test takers got feed back from a test narrator and proctor/note taker.

For example, the person in the image examining the victim's waist might have asked the narrator, "I'm looking for cut or bruises on the upper abdomen. Do I see any?" 

The narrator would say, "No cuts or bruises there."

There were two other 'victims' in the room with me. They were certified EMTs who came just to help out. I said to one of them, "This is sort of like D&D without the dungeons and dragons. Wouldn't be exciting to add a D&D factor so the narrator would say, "No cuts or bruises there but a fat orc is approaching from the forest (second image)." 

She said, "Actually, that would make it a lot less boring."

Anyway, George did not pass all and modules and will have to retest some of them but I don't have to be a victim anymore. Even though they did have free coffee, its not worth the time commitment (about 6 hours).

posted by Martin Weiss  # 10:24 AM

Friday, January 09, 2015

Cat Update 

Last week, I had made an appointment to finish the final 25% of the ultrasound procedure. The first 75% was done on Dec 15 (see post)

I put Trina in her carrier with difficulty as she put up quite a fight. Then I drove to the Veterinarian. As I was driving I thought to myself, "Why am I doing this? She is well now - she started rejecting the wet food and went back to dry food and without overeating and without any other digestion issues and with only minimal and sporadic nausea"

So I had a conversation with one of the Technicians and took her home without getting the ultrasound. 

posted by Martin Weiss  # 8:45 AM

Tuesday, January 06, 2015

A Snowstorm timed to mess up traffic 

Snow began falling about 300am today. By 600am there was about a half inch of snow. I left the house about 645am and had about 5 minute more driving time than normal.

Unfortunately, the snow became heavy by about 730am or so and a lot of people had excess driving times of 2 hours or more. This was partly because the snow removal and salting vehicles got in the way of the commuting vehicles and partly because everybody had to slow up.

The first image is of I-395 northbound in Arlington, VA and the second image is also from Arlington, VA (courtesy of  their police dept).

It was a 'dry' snow with small flake masses and the temperature was in the low 20s or less during the time it was snowing. The snow ended about 1100am or so. About 3" at our house. Dulles had 4". Reagan Natl about 2".

posted by Martin Weiss  # 6:47 PM

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