Free Stuff, Pretty Much

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Recently we ordered a new computer, a Mac.  We also ordered an iPod Touch and a printer.  We are getting a pretty good deal, if you ask me.  If you don’t ask me I still think it is a good deal.  It is all sort of free.

How might you get a computer and an iPod and a printer for free, you ask?  Like this:  Apple has a deal right now for educators–if you order a new Mac you can get an iPod Touch for free.  Well not exactly free, but you can get a rebate for the cost of the thing, so it counts as free in my book.  So that was an incentive (aside from our aging computer showing some hints of age).  When you order a Mac you also can get a rebate on a printer.  The rebate is the same as the cost of the printer.  We did spring the extra 30 bucks so the printer will be wireless (and host a copier and a scanner) so we are out of pocket a Hamilton and a Jackson at this point.

The computer wasn’t directly free.  We have been saving points from our credit card for a while now.  We wanted to just use those to get a computer but that wasn’t an option.  You can use your points for a lot, but not that.  You can, however, use your points for a mortgage payment.  They make the check out to your mortgage holder and send it to you to send in as a payment.  You can get it for whatever amount, so we got one for the cost of the computer.  We pay for the computer instead of the mortgage and it’s a wash.

All three of the items on our order were shipped separately, from different places.  The printer was shipped first and arrived yesterday.  It came late, at 8:30, right when the children were falling asleep, of course.  I met the FedEx driver on the porch and he had three packages.  One was some unlrelated clothing my spouse had ordered.  Then there were two printers.  I asked if he was sure they were all for us.  “Yup, the two printers and this smaller package,” was his response.  Sure enough, both printers had the right name and address.

Right away I checked to make sure I had not ordered two printers by mistake.  I had, indeed, only ordered one.  The tracking number was only attached to one.  Our order status only reflected one.  Apple had made a mistake.  So we called.  Maybe you would not have called but we felt it would be the right thing to do.  Good karma and all that.  My wife asked “What if you made a mistake but we are happy with the mistake?”  The rep at Apple asked if we would use a second printer.  Then, with the answer affirmative, said we could just keep it.

So we had to pay an extra 30 bucks but then we got an extra printer.  We may actually be ahead after all this.  We aren’t sure what we will do with the extra printer yet.  Use it at home?  Sell it?  Give it to someone who could really use it?  Like a nonprofit agency?  We will have to decide at some point.  That thing is taking up space.  And it is a good printer.

The Touch came today and I am taking precious time away from exploring its features to write this.  But it is a good story, no?  The computer is scheduled to arrive on Saturday.  I can’t imagine they would make the same mistake twice.  But one can hope, no?

Kitchen Frenzy and a Soup Recipe

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I got home from an all day meeting today about 4:30.  I headed right to the kitchen.  Last night I was going to make a tomato corn chowder.  Then I got working and didn’t stop until way too late.  So I planned to make it tonight.  And I did.  It meant I had to get cracking.  And I did.  It was, how to say this, tasty as all [insert expletive here].

I tried to find a recipe but just couldn’t scrounge one up.  That was probably for the better.  It would have taken me longer to keep referring to a book and then half forgetting what I just read as I chopped garlic.  Here is what I did:

  • Sauteed three small leeks in about a tablespoon of butter and a splash of olive oil in a large pot and then set that aside
  • Cut up two medium size carrots (small cubes), a couple pounds of red potatoes (cubed), two sweet peppers (diced) and sauteed all that in the large pot in about a tablespoon of butter and a splash of olive oil
  • Added four cups of water and two teaspoons of salt to the pot and brought that to a boil
  • Removed the pot and then removed a couple cups of the potatoes to keep them in chunks, then pureed the rest in a food processor
  • Tossed three small tomatoes (OK I used the one weird large tomato I picked yesterday that looked like three small tomatoes attached at the hip), diced, along with four cups of corn I had removed from the cob (already cooked) into the pot.
  • Heated the tomatoes and corn gently for about ten minutes, then added the chunks of potatoes and the puree
  • Added a teaspoon each of chopped fresh oregano, chives and thyme
  • Added a cup of whole milk
  • Topped with freshly grated black pepper, heated for another 10-15 minutes (stirring to keep it from sticking to the bottom)
  • Ate it up

The children chowed it, even my son, who has been pretty picky lately.  I have to admit, and my wife said this aloud, it was worth the hour spent preparing.  The vegetables and herbs were all from our garden or from our CSA.  Even the milk was local.

Item two was making the base for coffee ice cream.  I whipped that up while the soup heated and stuck it in the fridge.

Then I went out with the kids and picked basil.  We have more basil than I can handle.  This is first year that the basil has really just grown.  I clipped it pretty well not long ago and it really grew back well.  I cut 12 cups of the stuff with my eager children who lost interest when they decided to mow the lawn with their scissors.  They didn’t get all that far on that project.

I made three batches of pesto (it is supposed to get pretty cold the next couple of nights–basil doesn’t like cold), froze two and popped the other in the fridge.  By now the children were off to bed with their mother, and I tried not to make too much noise with the food processor.  They did fall asleep eventually, even after the delivery truck woke them up.  Late delivery.

I just polished off the small bowl of ice cream from the batch I made after the basil was stored away.  I probably shouldn’t have coffee ice cream this late–it is made with coffee after all, which people drink to stay awake.  But I had to try some.  What kind of cook would I be if I didn’t taste what I made?  Plus, I didn’t have that much.

I waited to eat the ice cream after I had cleaned up everything (except the ice cream maker bucket–that thing was way too cold to wash).  Cleaning too far too long.  I was ready to be done when the counter was still covered with dishes.  My wife still is healing from her sliced finger, otherwise I am sure she would have offered to do all the cleaning.  I cook, I clean, I eat.  All after a day at work.  Not bad, eh?

One, Two, Three

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Fizzy, Round and Just Plain Odd

Fizzy, Round and Just Plain Odd

I picked some more tomatoes today.  You can see the one on the right is a bit mis-shapen.  It looks like three tomatoes in one.  On the vine it seemed even more so.  I wasn’t sure if I was picking one big old fruit or three, or somehow two.  But, like all things, it was connected.  I have not sliced into it since the photo shoot (laboriously shot with sharp detail and vivid color  in my kitchen studio, as you can see) but I look forward to learning how sweet it is. The variety is called Cosmonaut Volkov.  I’m pretty sure it was developed in Russia, but that’s really just a guess.

The object in the middle is also a tomato.  That one is a different variety.  It is called Crimson Sprinter.  Supposedly it will ripen in about 60 days after transplanting.  It was around 70 days from gently easing the tender plants into the ground until I was blessed with this perfect, red, juicy, sweet and delicious globe of loveliness.  Not bad.  I ate my first of these two days ago.  Bring me more.

The third object is just my glass of seltzer.  It comes pre-flavored with lime.  Isn’t that convenient?  No need to cut an actual lime to flavor the fizziness.  The seltzer is nestled comfortably around ice.  I had considered creating a gin and tonic but, really, I was just too lazy to cut the lime, not to mention pour two liquids into the glass.  My wife cut her finger on a 10-inch chef’s knife yesterday afternoon and, although she is healing up nicely, I have to wash all the dishes for a few days.  With all that labor, I don’t have time to be slicing limes.  Or tomatoes for that matter.  Slicing will have to wait until tomorrow.  Once I polish off this beverage, I’ve got some work ahead of me washing out the glass.

Things I Would Like to Make Soon

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1. I have been thinking about coffee ice cream.  I am ready to make it.  I just need a little time to whip together some cream and sugar and milk and eggs and coffee, and Voila!  Frozen confection.

2. Tomato corn chowder.  We have lots of corn left over from last night and I need to use it ASAP.  And now we have tomatoes.  Save a little of that cream from making the ice cream, add some fresh herbs and some other tasty bits and Voila!  Soup for a royal family.

3. Some bookshelves.  We have tons of books and I love to read and the good tomes are all still packed into boxes.  A post and beam home has one drawback–much less wall space.  That means less room for art and for furniture and for shelves.  So our books sit unread.  With a little creativity we can fit in some bookshelves.

4. An orchard.  Well maybe not an orchard on the scale of, say, one that sells fruit to markets, but a small one, with lots of trees to give us peaches and pears and apples and maybe even something more exotic, like walnuts.  And some more blueberry bushes.  And maybe some grapes.  That might mean a lot of work, I understand, but apple pie and peach ice cream and grape juice…

5. Some poems.  My writing has been limited to blogging and work, at least for the most part.  I should be tossing out some more creativity.

6. My wife happy.  I know one can’t really make someone else happy, but let’s face it, someone trying sure can make a difference.  Not that she isn’t happy, but one of my favorite things in the world is to see her face glowing with joy or laughing with abandon.  Seriously.  Seeing her happy makes me happy.  I love that woman.

7.  I also want to make some kindling.  Winter will be here soon enough and having a big stash of kindling on hand makes things a lot easier.  If I can make it soon enough that it will dry before we need it, I will be ahead of the game.  For years we had an supply of dry leftover lumber bits but that ran out two winters ago.  Now I have to gather and split to get the fire going.

8. A will would be good.  We have put that task off for too long.  We did talk with a lawyer at one point but then that morbid responsibility fell off the list.  Time to put it back on.

9. I need to make myself stronger.  I have been running and biking and that just plain old feels good.  I need to keep that up, and then get to a point where I can really get out there and fly.  Who doesn’t want to fly?  A long run, or a run in the middle of a snowstorm, or a zoom down a tree-lined path, those are like flying.  I want to fly.

Making things is about being creative.  And isn’t creativity a form of flying?  That is really what I want.  I want to fly.

Pile O’ Bounty

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Pile of Quality Food, Grown Right Here

Pile of Quality Food, Grown Right Here

Had a good harvest day yesterday.  We picked our first tomatoes yesterday–three Crimson Sprinters.  The Cosmonaut Volkovs should be ready later this week.  Before we know it we will have more tomatoes than we can handle.  If only I could get them to be ripe earlier.

We also ate corn last night for dinner.  We got it from the farm in Richmond, Conant’s Riverside Farm, where we used to get it a lot, until we moved to Hinesburg.  This is our first time eating corn from there this summer, since my daughter and I were passing by there yesterday afternoon.  That corn is quality stuff.  One of these days I will try again to grow sweet corn.  Popcorn is growing well in our garden but it won’t be ready for a while.

We need to keep on it or things will get overripe.  Another warm and sunny day today–we won’t have to worry about what’s for dinner, just how to prepare it.  With the leftover corn from last night, and all the tomatoes on the way, a corn tomato chowder may be on deck for tonight.  Plus maybe coffee ice cream.  Who would say not to that?

Mascot Suit Hazard

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Champ

Champ

My family went to a Vermont Lake Monsters game tonight at Burlington’s Centennial Field.  We had a good time.  There was plenty of action and we all had free Chessters frozen treats, thanks to my employer.  We watched Champ, their mascot, dance around with the usual mascot antics.  Unlike the last time I went to one of these games, with just my daughter, the kids thought Champ was a bit of a hoot.

On our way home, long past the children’s bed times, my son let loose a rather foul smelling burst of gas.  It meant the windows were open for a while.  And then I got thinking.  What if the guy in the Champ suit laid one of those?  Where could he go?  Nowhere, that’s where.  No tacos before game night, that would be my rule.  Good old Champ.

Slaving Away Over a Hot Desk

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Diskobolos

It’s back to work time for this boy.  No more lounging away the summer days on a ladder with a paint can in one hand and a brush in the other and beads of sweat dripping into the eyes one can’t wipe clear because of the protective rubber gloves.  No more happy encounters with cucumber beetles who wish to share their produce with those who live inside the house.  Alas, it is back to Excel spreadsheets and phone calls and eventually, talking with students about their promising futures.  Starting yesterday, my brain had to rev up like a DVD just inserted into its cozy drive.  I think it is still spinning.

I did not break a sweat as I prepared for the upcoming academic year.  I went to meetings.  Sometimes I break a sweat at meetings because I have to present or I have to be responsible for enough that my armpits drip.  Nervousness they tell me.  My friend Spike refers to that as squirreling.  No squirreling today.  I didn’t even break a sweat when I blasted out the house for a quick bike ride before prepping dinner.  It was raining.

Did I mention dinner?  I baked up a summer vegetable gratin again.  I had to wait a couple of days from gathering all the ingredients as we had family engagements the past two evenings (last night we posed for family photos–it’s nice to have someone just tell me where to stand once in a while).  Think fresh tomatoes, three kinds of summer squash, potatoes dug up just two days ago, parmesan cheese and fresh herbs.  All baked together into a bubbling and steaming delight.  Two words:  Ooh baby.  My daughter ate it.  My son would not.  We fed him oatmeal.

This job I’ve got means working at home, often evenings, sometimes weekends.  Already I am thinking about what I might get done as my spouse tucks the children into bed.  I resisted actually doing anything so foolhardy this evening, however.  Instead I read about ten interesting deserts (one in Brazil is littered with lagoons when it rains) and a list of weird allergies (people really can be allergic to water, apparently.  And sex.).  Then I decided to bust out the old blog and get cracking.

I hung out with a friend recently who said that she never reads blogs because all they are is a bunch of people boring anyone who happens to stumble across them with repeated fannings over their boyfriends or overly detailed descriptions of their new puppies foibles.  I tried to tell her she might be able to find something that caters to her sense of humor or to her modern and refined wit, but she was skeptical.   Certainly I wasn’t going to point her here.

Did I tell you about my new puppy?  My sister-in-law’s kids are so in love with it.  And the way it wiggles its little hiney.  SO cute!

Anyway, summer is still here.  It is in the 80’s for Christopher’s sake.  Two days ago it was 91 degrees and the air was pretty much saturated.  It felt like Florida, where my electric bill would be like ten times what it is here in Vermont since I would pretty much be required to have an air conditioner running at all times.  I did wish we had an extra fan the other night.  We let the children use them and just sweated into the sheets.  Now I have to wear pants in this heat.  I just can’t bring myself to wear shorts at a school.  Maybe I should when it gets this hot, however.  But what difference would it make?  I will either distract students with my balding pate glistening with rills of sweat, or I will distract them with my Discobolos-like calves.

I can’t win.  Not in this heat.

Slow Camera

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For the most part our little camera does the trick.  It is several years old, however, and I would love to update.  Mostly, the shutter delay drives me crazy.  It is really difficult to get some types of shots, even with the various settings the camera offers.  Today, I was with my kids swimming.  I thought I would get some pics of them jumping into the pool.  But I either got this:

Dohp! Too early!

Dohp! Too early!

Or this:

Daah! Too late!

Daah! Too late!

It was kind of a bummer.  My birthday is coming up (although I guess, really, one’s birthday is always coming up) so maybe it’s time to treat myself to a new camera.

Thinking About Integrity

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I continue to spend a bunch of time painting when I can fit it in.  I had the idea that I might paint all the trim on our house this summer, but that is clearly not to be.  There is too much left to do and my flexible time is about over.  One week and I am back into the swing of things with work full time.  So it goes.  I’ve got weekends, right?  I got up early and painted this morning.  I removed the doors from our deck yesterday, took them right off the hinges and set them up in the garage on sawhorses.  I scraped and sanded them and primed them yesterday.  Then they had to dry for a day so we had a night without doors onto the deck.

Of course, we had some intense thunderstorms last night.  Heavy rain and wind and those big flashes of lightning that make everything seem more dramatic in the dark.  I hung a couple of towels at the base of the doors to at least catch the splashing.  That worked out just fine.  This morning I got up early again to paint the doors lying down in the garage.  They were waiting patiently for me.  That is done.  Now I still need to scrape the windows, clean the glass, reattach the clips for the storm glass, rehang the doors, and rehang the storm glass.  Almost done with that task.  All that needs to get done by this afternoon when we have visitors coming.

Anyway, with all this time prepping and painting, I have some time to think.  I spent the other day thinking about my brother and the path his life has taken and the opportunities he has not in front of him.  This morning I thought about morals and integrity.  The book of the summer for me has been John Steinbeck’s The Winter of Our Discontent.  The plot of the story revolves around one man’s struggle with his principles.  Under pressure from his family he winds up making his fortune, but only after making some decisions that are morally questionable.   While I slapped on latex I thought this.  The book was, according to Steinbeck, written in part to address a decline of integrity in American culture.  That decline has not been stopped.

I was thinking about how we prize money in our culture over most anything else.  We don’t think long term.  We don’t look at the big picture.  Have a loss this quarter?  The company must be in trouble.  But what company can grow every quarter.  That seems an impossible thing to ask.  But this pressure to make profits means that companies, meaning the people who run them, think more about dollar profits than they do about costs to the environment, to health, to workers.  The people who run companies often compromise moral principles for short term gain.  That is too bad, since I would prefer to shop from companies that are simply, well, better, not just who offer better products.

OK, I’m generalizing, but can anyone, conservative or liberal or anywhere in the middle, really believe that our moral compass is pointing us in the right direction?  Our cruel and polluting food system is a tragedy, yet food companies work to hide that fact (see Food Inc.) and we seem to truly want to be ignorant of where our food comes from;  otherwise we might have to make a moral choice.  Many of us hardly know our neighbors.  We fill our homes with stuff without regard to how that stuff was made or who made it or what will happen to it when we toss it.  We accept layoffs of a thousand people as just the cost of business.  What gives?

Right now, our health care system is an embarrassment.  What we need is a system where everyone is covered and we don’t spend billions of dollars on advertising for prescription drugs or on overhead to run insurance companies.  I know that many people just don’t want to rock the boat, but come on here people.  Medicare and Medicaid spend far less on overhead that any insurance company, yet we think the insurance system we have now just needs a little tweaking?  Maybe this just makes me sound like what conservatives like to disparagingly call a liberal.  If being a liberal means asking questions and thinking about what makes the most sense for “we the people” (remember them?) then I guess I am one. When I hear people criticizing a bill that would help improve our health care system (at least it would move it in the right direction) by denouncing its support of euthanasia, which isn’t even in the bill, then I have to ask, what is wrong with us?

So I get Steinbeck’s ire at a declining sense of morality, of a loss of principles, and that was 50 years ago.  What would he think today?  What would he write today?  Not that it matters.  he was trying to point it out in 1960 and things haven’t changed a whole lot.  Some would say things have gotten worse.  And this brings me back to thinking about my brother.  He has tried to do the right thing and has made lots of sacrifices for his daughter, who is a teenager.  He has lived in his home town his whole life and did not move, although he wanted to, in large part to do as much as he could for his kid.  And now, despite his desires, she is moving with her mother half way across the continent.  That move isn’t right or wrong;  it is the situation to be had.  My brother has tried all along to do the right thing.  I respect him for that.  It often is not easy to do.

In Spike Lee’s 1989 film, Do the Right Thing, Da Mayor tells Mookie, “Always do the right thing….That’s it.”  That has stuck with me for 20 years.  One can’t really be sure much of time what the right thing is, but that shouldn’t be a barrier to doing it.

Does all this make sense?  Maybe so and maybe not.  It’s what I have to offer from my musings while painting.  I was in the garage, and the circulation was limited, so there may be some fume-addled ideas here.  In any case, it’s what you get, at least for today.

Too Much Getting Sent All Over

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We have had our current computer, an iBook, since 2003 or so.  It still runs fine.  We have updated the operating system.  We can send email and write documents and watch videos and all the other computer stuff one might do these days.  But we are starting to have a few issues.  For one, the R key is off.  It popped off, literally, once (snagged on a sleeve, I believe) and we couldn’t get it back on quote right.  It still works but requires a small extra effort to type that important letter (22 of them so far, including the ones in these parentheses).  The screen also has some issues, turning half blue if it is tilted at the wrong angle.  Oh, and the battery is dead, so essentially it is a desktop on the counter.

So we decided to get a new computer.  Here is our strategy:  cash in all the points we have accumulated from our credit card for a mortgage payment (who knew you could get that?) and use what would have been our mortgage payment to buy a new computer.  We want to get another Mac (I mean, duh) and right now they have a deal that we would be prudent to accept.  We can get a free iPod Touch with the purchase of a new computer.  Done.  At least, I tried to make it so.  Then I pulled the plug.

A couple of days ago I went to the Apple web site and put in an order.  I even got the free engraving on the iPod Touch.  I was excited and eager to get the goods.  I splurged on the $19 remote for the desktop (the laptop just seemed more than we needed after using our current one in stationary mode for so long).  Then my wife pointed out that you can download a 99 cent app and turn your Touch into a remote.  When I tried to go back to the order online (now a mere hour old) I couldn’t separate the remote from the order.  It looked like I would have to cancel the whole thing.  So I called.

The good news came first.  “We won’t make you cancel the order,” the rep told me.  “We’ll just leave the remote in there and credit you $19.”  What a deal!  Then she mentioned the tax holiday.  Vermont has a tax holiday on August 22nd so no one has to pay state sales tax on anything under $2,000.  We would save close to $100.  That seemed stupid to pass up.  But it would mean I would have to cancel the order and start over, ordering on August 22nd.  So I told her to cancel it.  That meant no free remote.

The problem was that the iPod Touch was already being processed and it was too late to stop that being sent.  They are quick with those puppies apparently.  No big deal, I thought, I can wait for the computer.  The catch, however, is that to get the free iPod Touch you have to order it at the same time as the computer.  So now I would have to pay for the Touch or send it back when it arrived.  Free sounds a lot better than $229 to me.  They would email some labels so I could mail it back without having to pay postage.  Easy.  Done.  I hung up.

But then I remembered that if you get engraving on an iPod you can’t return it.  So I called back.  This time I talked to Sheryl, and she was patient with me.  She told me that typically they would not accept an engraved iPod as a return, but they would make an exception for me.  What a deal!  Great customer service, I’m thinking.  Then I asked her what would happen to it when it got sent back.  She said they would remove the back, where it is engraved, put on a new back, and sell it as refurbished.  So they would pay the postage to get it to me, pay the postage to get it returned, then make less of a profit on top of that.  That seems, well, kind of dumb, considering I really do want the thing.  If they would simply let me keep it and use the rebate (and it is a rebate after all, meaning I have to pay for it and get the cash back) then everyone would be better off.  They would have less work to do, make more money, and I would get what I wanted faster, all saving green house gases and fuel and whatever else would be saved.

So I will get my new toy in the mail, send it back, and then re-order the whole kit and kaboodle in a couple of weeks.  I hate to wait, but I also hate to pay an extra hundred bucks.  I loved Apple’s customer service, but it does make me a tad concerned for the company’s future.  They were willing to give me a free remote, take back something they wouldn’t normally take back, at a loss perhaps, and mail me something twice that I am sure would be perfectly good the first time.  I will end up with what I want in the end, I suppose, although I will have to wait longer than I wanted.  Apple takes the hit.  That is too bad.  I am sure it could have been better for both of us but hey, not all relationships can’t be perfect, now can they?