THE WEISS CHRONICLES

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

M back to work - but area still has problems 

One of of kosher restaurants opened for a few hours yesterday and they asked if I could help them out. I did. They actually had customers. 

From what I heard of the conversations, people are suffering from cabin fever.

Meanwhile the dig out continues. The image is from the Washington Post and shows a DC Govt vehicle equipped with a snow plow that got stuck yesterday (Jan 25) while working on a side street.  


The second image (from anonymous person on the internet) is of a pile of snow near a crosswalk in Takoma Park, Md. 

It was also taken on January 25.

The piles of snow are going to be a problem for a while as, for example, some 4 lane roads become 2 lane roads near the bigger piles.

  An

posted by Martin Weiss  # 5:58 AM

Monday, January 25, 2016

Pretty Snowstorm actually reached Blizzard Conditions 

The Capital Weather Gang, a sub site of the Washington Post website, has named this storm "Snowzilla" (first image) although the weather channel/weather underground call it "Jonas" and others are calling it the "Blizzard of 2016" (this would have to be revisited if there were another blizzard this year).  Another name nominated was "Snownino" (would have to be reconsidered similar to Blizzard of 2016) because there is an El Nino event in the Pacific Equatorial Area. 

"Snowzilla" is a name that has been used before. 

For example, in Anchorage, Alaska, a fellow named Billy Powers reportedly built a super giant snowman several years before the city banned tall snowmen in 2008 or so (I think it was causing traffic jams). 

The story behind this Alaska snowzilla is here. The image (second in this post) is from 2005.

The third image is taken in Cleveland Park, a neighborhood, in the District of Columbia at about 6pm EST on Jan 23. I got this from a twitter feed that was captured at The Weather Gang website.

I went out the morning after the blizzard (Jan 24) and did some shoveling and took some pictures. 


Among the pictures I took were the two cars in our driveway (images 4 and 5). 

Its hard to really know how much snow we got. It was probably two feet or slightly more than two feet (someone in north Potomac about 1 mile away from us claimed to receive 34").

The front yard was obviously a different view from normal. Image 6 shows my red rose bush. The top of the bush is about 3 and half feet high.   

I did some of the shoveling myself, perhaps 10% of what was needed, but it was very slow going. 

I ended up paying $150 to a family of four who came by with shovels and wanted to do it. It took the four of them about 2 hours to do the driveway and the sidewalks and clean off the cars.

The next image (image 7) shows me, my shovel and our stuffed bulldog, UGA (from the University of Georgia - we inherited him from Ann's mother) at the street end of the driveway - yes the pile of snow really is about 5 feet high and we will have to have a spotter when we pull out of our driveway until the snow melt a bit.  This image is also at the stuffed animal blog with a post there.



Also, my hat is a genuine made in Russia fur hat - also inherited from Ann's mom - she bought it in Russia. 




The final two images (the eighth and ninth) show our back yard from slightly different points. 

The eighth shows, in the center of the picture, our wind charm which is normally about 3 feet above an elevated garden. The garden and the rest of the yard seem to be at the same elevation after the snow. 

Behind the wind charm seems to be a snow pile but actually, the snow is sitting on a pile of dead wood that has accumulated from my occasional collection of tree branches that have fallen on the yard.

 
The ninth image shows a similar view but shows a nice bump where the snow accumulated on our grill which in turn is on a bench.  

As in the previous image, the snow has evened things out in elevation. 

Each image may be enlarged by clicking on it. 

Some images may be enlarged twice by clicking twice on it. 





\.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 8:19 PM

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Top Leader of Mighty Nation vs. one half inch snow 

Yesterday (Jan 20) there was a one half inch snow storm. Actually it was probably less than a half inch (the newspaper article I read said 2" but the image makes it look like there was less than a half inch).

The President of the U.S. came back from a trip to Detroit. He got in a limo at Andrews Naval Air Station and, with a motorcade (that's the image) began the trip to the White House.

This is usually about a 15 minute trip but it took over an hour because of traffic jams caused by the snow.

Story from the Washington Post here.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 11:03 PM

Monday, January 18, 2016

It was so cold my butane lighter didn't work 

Today was cold. Really cold.

I went to a 700 am minyan and put my mashgiach stuff in the car (it was probably about 10F or so - map is for tonight). Then I went home but left the stuff in the car. I then went to a 900 am mashgiach job inside our synagogue bringing in my mashgiach bag (contains various tape, scissors, mashgiach manual, butane lighters, prayer book). 

At about 915 am, I was asked to light some burners on the stove top. I took a butane lighter and got almost no flame at all. I ended up putting the lighter in the oven for a minute so it would warm up and then the flame was nice and strong. The butane liquid itself isn't what is lit, it is the butane vapor and at low temperature there is low pressure and not much gas comes out.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 5:59 PM

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

That's Not How the Force Works 

 At the caterer today a customer made a change in their order.

They had originally wanted X chocolate chip cookies and Y chocolate chip cookies with peanut butter (the second image is the one with peanut butter - typically they don't hold together as well because you reduce the flour a bit).

 

The customer changed the order to X+n chocolate and X-n chocolate with peanut butter.

I said to the pastry chef, "We can use the Force to get the peanut butter out of the n cookies in the second group". He laughed.

Then I thought of the line in SW- TFA when Han Solo says, "That's not how the Force works."

posted by Martin Weiss  # 7:46 PM

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Hirshhorn and Vicinity 

We went downtown today.  This was partly because it was a relatively nice day (temperature in the low 60sF at noon).  Partly, it was because I wanted to see the Surrealism exhibit at the Hirshhorn Museum.

The first image is Ann and I in front of a sculpture called, "The Healer".  It was by René Magritte and made of bronze (1967). It was in an area where you were allowed to take pictures. In most of the Surrealism exhibit there were signs saying not to take pictures.

The Hirshhorn Museum superstructure is one of the ugliest museum buildings (second image) in the world.

However, around the museum are some nice and/or interesting things.  

For example just outside the building is a row of giant cabbage plants (third image).

You might not expect giant cabbage plants next to a modern art museum but now you know better. 

There are also many nice gardens in the vicinity of the Hirshhorn. Because it was winter, these were uncrowded this day.

The fourth image is of a fountain still decorated for the holidays. It is on the side of the Hirshhorn.

When we came home, a cold front was coming through.  We got in our car at the Grosvenor Metrorail station and the temperature on the dashboard said 59F. After we got about a mile from the station, the temperature had dropped to about 50F (per the dashboard).

  


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posted by Martin Weiss  # 11:30 PM

Clubbing with Gaga, Clooney, Depp and Rivers 

I was mashgiach at an event at The Park at 14th (image of the 2nd and 3nd floor) which advertises itself as Washington's premiere night club. The event was a Saturday night office party for the company Novetta (second image) which is a software company (apparently their cyber analytic stuff sold well in 2015). 

It was difficult from a Kashrut perspective because of space restrictions and the fact that non kosher food and drinks were being served under the same roof.  However, I think everything went OK in that department.

The Park had a terrific band and also impersonators of Lady Gaga, George Clooney (without Amal), Johnny Depp and the late Joan Rivers. It was kind of fun.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 1:30 AM

Friday, January 08, 2016

How Great is the Millennium Falcon 

I saw Star Wars - TFA on Jan.7  Wonderful action (I saw the 3D version). Nice character development.  Excellent fitting of the personal interactions and the galactic politics.

On the negative side the plot was derivative with the same 'captured and escape', 'blow up the bad guys at the last moment' themes as other episodes. Even worse, the plot had some awful premises to buy into.

My favorite awful premise involves incredibly well designed Millennium Falcon (first image).  

In the movie, the Millennium Falcon has been in a junkyard for 30 years but two of the good team (Rey and Finn -- neither of whom has been a pilot) use in it to escape from a planet occupied by bad guys. 

The space ship works almost perfectly. 

The good team operate the controls with few problems and the 30 year old weapons from the ship (operated by a guy with no experience and no training and no Jedi lineage) shoot down the best up to date special forces tie fighters (second image) that the bad guys have.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 10:58 AM

Tuesday, January 05, 2016

Wrong Movie and btw, I hate Pixar 

So I went to the theater today and they gave me a ticket to the wrong movie.

I didn't notice because the previews were all Disney animation stuff and the movie I went to see was a Disney production.

When the feature came on, I thought it was just another preview but after waiting for it to end, it just kept going. It was "The Good Dinosaur". The plot was annoying. Dinosaurs were living in a climate with a rainy summer and cold winter. The Dinosaurs were growing corn in rows and feeding corn to domesticated chicken like creatures and storing corn for the winter.  The Dinosaurs were cute and incredibly anthropomorphic and expressive.  Of course humans were contemporaries and parasitic to the dinosaurs (stealing their corn).

I hate those unrealistic plot devices. 

Now I have to reschedule my viewing of Star Wars - The Force Awakens.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 12:56 PM

Friday, January 01, 2016

Another platelet/plasma movie 

  I was giving platelets and plasma today. I chose the 2003 movie "School of Rock" to watch during the procedure (images are before training and after). 

It was surprisingly good. Jack Black plays a rock musician who fakes being a school teacher and ends up training a class of prep school kids. They become a band, including lead guitar, keyboard, percussion as well as the roadie function, the back up singer function, the manager function, the sound and light function. 

The project seems doomed to failure but somehow the kids themselves rescue the project at the last moment. (sort of an inspirational teacher with a twist).

It got excellent ratings from the crowd source and aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes scoring a 92 on the Tomatometer (the Wizard of Oz or the Godfather get ratings of 100 or near it).  


It also got about $130 million (domestic plus foreign) at the box office so movie goers liked it too.


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posted by Martin Weiss  # 2:20 PM

Near the End of an Era 

Yesterday was our anniversary and we got take out to supplement a restaurant meal (actual image).

It is near the end of another era, that is, the era of Styrofoam containers from restaurants in Montgomery county.

As of today (1-1-2016), chain stores and independents with over a certain high level of sales (I'm not clear on this), are not permitted to use Styrofoam for take out. This is also the law in Washington, D.C. 

Independents get another year to phase out the Styrofoam.

posted by Martin Weiss  # 11:12 AM

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