From an unreleased Transportation Security Administration (TSA) document outlining additional security measures to be implemented in the wake of the failed Christmas Day attack on Delta Airlines flight 253.
10: No carry-on luggage will be allowed - checked baggage only. In addition, passengers to disrobe, pack clothes in baggage and fly nude.
9: Baggage described in item 10 to be flown to destination via different flight, and preferably on a different airline.
8: Potential passengers will be required to recite Pledge of Allegiance prior to boarding. Those unable to do so to the satisfaction of the TSA will not be boarded.
7: Seating will be assigned in the following order: Christian Americans will be seated first. Non-Christian Americans may be seated second, upon successful completion of additional screening procedures, including, but not limited to, recitation of a Bible passage to be selected by TSA personnel in their sole discretion. Non-American passengers will not be boarded under any circumstances.
6: Potential passengers observed, heard, or rumored to be complaining during screening process will not be boarded.
5: Passengers will remain seated, with seatbelts fastened, during final hour of flight. For the purposes of security, it is assumed that an attack on the aircraft is imminent, that the aircraft will be destroyed, and that the aircraft is therefore in its "final hour of flight." As a result, passengers will remain seated, with seatbelts fastened, for the entire duration of the flight.
4: On-board televisions will be turned off. In addition, passengers will be prohibited from using any electronic devices, including, but not limited to, computers, cell phones, Blackberries, hand-held gaming devices, radios, televisions, cameras, music players, and any other device whatsoever, whether hand-held or not, and whether electronic or not.
3: Passengers will face forward and refrain from speaking during the final hour of flight (see item 5).
2: Passengers may not blink, twitch, shift, move, sigh, moan, mumble, nod, speak, sing nor hum during the final hour of flight (see item 5).
1: Effective immediately, 95 of every 100 passengers will be deputized as a Federal Air Marshal. To encourage volunteers for this program, potential Air Marshals will be exempt from screening procedures 2 through 10.
December 28, 2009
Ring-billed Gull.
Click here for a larger version (1024x680) in a new window.
A Ring-billed Gull (Larus delawarensis), photographed in Cleveland, Ohio. Nikon D40 with 100-300mm D lens at 300mm, ISO1600, 1/1000 sec exposure at f6.7.
December 26, 2009
Gobble, gobble.
Like most of the other 60 billion pounds of people in America, we treat ourselves to a proper gorgement every Christmas. After all, it's only appropriate that our profligate spending be reflected in our dining habits. Otherwise, the whole Orgy Of Holiday Seasonal Activities would seem unbalanced. In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say, then multiply that by the exponentially-increasing number of pennies and pounds.
So it comes to pass that on Christmas night, the three of us - me, The Lovely Mrs. byoolin's trebuchet, and She Who Will Put Us In A Home (formerly known as The Kid) - sit down to a dinner that can't be beat. (Not only can it not be beat, it's never even been tied, and we've frankly given up any hope of even being considered to be in the same league. But I digress.)
There's always turkey and stuffing and gravy and sweet potatoes and some kind of other vegetable and there's usually mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce and Yorkshire pudding or homemade bread.
And when we have Christmas at home, there's just the three of us, so there's always leftovers. There's only so much of a ten- or twelve- or fifteen-pound turkey and its accompaniments that three people can eat at one sitting. While I can take some small comfort knowing that evolution will probably provide our distant descendants with (a) accordion-like stomachs which expand to accommodate enormous holiday meals or (b) fewer nerve endings between the ribs and pelvis to leave them blissfully unaware of their distension, it doesn't help our present situation. For that, we undo our belts, push away from the table and await dessert.
[Permit me another digression: having read the previous four paragraphs, I can't say I am surprised that people in the Third World might hate us.]
Anyway, as I was saying, there's only so much we can finish off at the first go. Leftovers abound. There are usually big bowls of stuffing, of gravy, of starchy tubers, and somewhere between sixty and eighty percent of an uneaten turkey left behind. Into the fridge and freezer they all go, to be picked over for the next two or three weeks, to be made into sandwiches and chili and hash browns and expanded midriffs.
But I've always thrown away the carcass of the bird and (usually) within hours remembered that I'd wanted to use it to make soup. Then I'd spend a little time cursing myself for forgetting and a little time cursing my family for wanting nothing to do with retrieved-from-the-garbage turkey soup.
This year, though, I remembered my soup plan before pitching the bird and saved the carcass. And today I made my first-ever turkey soup. I found a recipe at Allrecipes.com for After-Thanksgiving Turkey Soup (I know), secured the necessary ingredients (encountering as I did so an unprecedented shortage of half-and-half in the city's grocery and convenience stores which nearly forced me to use pumpkin spice flavoured coffee whitener in its stead) and set to work.
I tweaked the recipe a bit - less butter (I mean, who really needs a cup of it?), more of just about everything else to accommodate the extra broth I ended up with, and a couple of hours later, ta-da! Turkey soup. And pretty tasty, too.
But here's the thing: now, in addition to the big bowls of stuffing and gravy and eight pounds of leftover turkey, I've got six quarts of soup. It's really good, but it's six quarts.
So when New Year's Day comes and She Who Will Put Us In A Home begins 2010 as a vegetarian, I'll merely be in Week Two of The Year Of Eating Leftover Turkey-Based Products.
So it comes to pass that on Christmas night, the three of us - me, The Lovely Mrs. byoolin's trebuchet, and She Who Will Put Us In A Home (formerly known as The Kid) - sit down to a dinner that can't be beat. (Not only can it not be beat, it's never even been tied, and we've frankly given up any hope of even being considered to be in the same league. But I digress.)
There's always turkey and stuffing and gravy and sweet potatoes and some kind of other vegetable and there's usually mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce and Yorkshire pudding or homemade bread.
And when we have Christmas at home, there's just the three of us, so there's always leftovers. There's only so much of a ten- or twelve- or fifteen-pound turkey and its accompaniments that three people can eat at one sitting. While I can take some small comfort knowing that evolution will probably provide our distant descendants with (a) accordion-like stomachs which expand to accommodate enormous holiday meals or (b) fewer nerve endings between the ribs and pelvis to leave them blissfully unaware of their distension, it doesn't help our present situation. For that, we undo our belts, push away from the table and await dessert.
[Permit me another digression: having read the previous four paragraphs, I can't say I am surprised that people in the Third World might hate us.]
Anyway, as I was saying, there's only so much we can finish off at the first go. Leftovers abound. There are usually big bowls of stuffing, of gravy, of starchy tubers, and somewhere between sixty and eighty percent of an uneaten turkey left behind. Into the fridge and freezer they all go, to be picked over for the next two or three weeks, to be made into sandwiches and chili and hash browns and expanded midriffs.
But I've always thrown away the carcass of the bird and (usually) within hours remembered that I'd wanted to use it to make soup. Then I'd spend a little time cursing myself for forgetting and a little time cursing my family for wanting nothing to do with retrieved-from-the-garbage turkey soup.
This year, though, I remembered my soup plan before pitching the bird and saved the carcass. And today I made my first-ever turkey soup. I found a recipe at Allrecipes.com for After-Thanksgiving Turkey Soup (I know), secured the necessary ingredients (encountering as I did so an unprecedented shortage of half-and-half in the city's grocery and convenience stores which nearly forced me to use pumpkin spice flavoured coffee whitener in its stead) and set to work.
I tweaked the recipe a bit - less butter (I mean, who really needs a cup of it?), more of just about everything else to accommodate the extra broth I ended up with, and a couple of hours later, ta-da! Turkey soup. And pretty tasty, too.
But here's the thing: now, in addition to the big bowls of stuffing and gravy and eight pounds of leftover turkey, I've got six quarts of soup. It's really good, but it's six quarts.
So when New Year's Day comes and She Who Will Put Us In A Home begins 2010 as a vegetarian, I'll merely be in Week Two of The Year Of Eating Leftover Turkey-Based Products.
December 12, 2009
Careful With That Axe, Eugene.
I'm still certain that the Lovely Mrs. byoolin's trebuchet has no idea what she's in for, but she wanted - heck, she insisted - that my Christmas present this year be a guitar.
An electric guitar.
She said, "I want to hear you play again." Before I met her, I owned a couple of electric guitars, but by the time we met, they were both gone and in their places I had a pair of acoustic guitars - a six-string Harmony and a twelve-string Takamine that was a gift from a previous girlfriend.
I seldom played the twelve-string; it was hard (for me) to play and hard (for me) to keep in tune. We sold it one month when we were short of cash. I felt little regret at letting it go, figuring that it would be better off in the hands of someone who knew what he or she was doing with it.
The six-string was easier to play, but when I moved from Canada to the US I left it behind, accidentally on purpose, in the old apartment. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn't have done that, but it made sense at the time. But here we are now, seven years removed from the last time she heard me play a guitar, long enough for the memories of buzzy strings, missed notes, atonal chords and (inevitably) the same bits played again and again and again to fade from her memory, leaving only the sweetly romanticized notion of me playing an instrument.
So I said "No, thanks."
That was my first mistake. You don't say no to the Lovely Mrs. byoolin's trebuchet. (Well, maybe you say no to her, but I sure don't.) So, after a few days, I carefully considered the error of my ways and said, "Let's go look at guitars."
Now it's five days later and I'm the proud daddy of a Squier Deluxe Stratocaster and a Vox Pathfinder 10 practice amp.
And you should see the look on the cats' faces when I turn up the gain.
An electric guitar.
She said, "I want to hear you play again." Before I met her, I owned a couple of electric guitars, but by the time we met, they were both gone and in their places I had a pair of acoustic guitars - a six-string Harmony and a twelve-string Takamine that was a gift from a previous girlfriend.
I seldom played the twelve-string; it was hard (for me) to play and hard (for me) to keep in tune. We sold it one month when we were short of cash. I felt little regret at letting it go, figuring that it would be better off in the hands of someone who knew what he or she was doing with it.
The six-string was easier to play, but when I moved from Canada to the US I left it behind, accidentally on purpose, in the old apartment. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn't have done that, but it made sense at the time. But here we are now, seven years removed from the last time she heard me play a guitar, long enough for the memories of buzzy strings, missed notes, atonal chords and (inevitably) the same bits played again and again and again to fade from her memory, leaving only the sweetly romanticized notion of me playing an instrument.
So I said "No, thanks."
That was my first mistake. You don't say no to the Lovely Mrs. byoolin's trebuchet. (Well, maybe you say no to her, but I sure don't.) So, after a few days, I carefully considered the error of my ways and said, "Let's go look at guitars."
Now it's five days later and I'm the proud daddy of a Squier Deluxe Stratocaster and a Vox Pathfinder 10 practice amp.
And you should see the look on the cats' faces when I turn up the gain.
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