Saturday we got our tree. We got to the cut your own farm later than I wanted, in an attempt to go with the Porsches, but they got there about five minutes before we did, and we never saw them. Twelve year old and seven year old had differing ideas, and were at loggerheads, so twelve year old waited everyone out, until we were all cold and tired. Once again, I ended up cutting a tree with a dull saw in twilight, and we ended up being the last customers. Then again, $30 is hard to beat. We decorated the tree Sunday night.
No new phone yet, there was too much clothes shopping on Sunday to get a phone. At least twelve year old doesn't have to dress like a bum anymore, with torn jeans and old sneakers. Also on Sunday I fixed my old acoustic, one of the worm gears on a tuner was worn, so I couldn't tune the high E string. I ended up taking off all the strings to get behind the bridge to pop out the things holding the strings down, then restringing it with lighter strings. I also had to hot glue the nut back on. It's an old guitar, and now there's some buzzing going on down at the bridge. I did tune it to the usual tuning, I need to tune up seven year old's (thanks!) to the usual tuning and teach her, so she can get into School of the Arts.
In other School of the Arts news, the girl on our street who also rides the bus is in Theater Tech, too. She's in ninth grade.
I'm going to declare schweineschnitzel a recipe I no longer need to look up. I was looking for something to do with thin, boneless pork chops one day and found schweineschnitzel, tried it, and it's great.
Roughly
take a thin, boneless pork chop
pound even flatter
fill a bowl with flour and pepper
take each chop and cover in flour/pepper mixture
beat an egg
fill a bowl with bread crumbs
dredge chop through egg, then bread crumbs
put in fridge for an hour
to serve, fry up in a pan, a few minutes on side.
Serve with a lemon slice, lager, applesauce, potato pancakes, peirogies and a small central European country.
In media news, we watched no movies, but I did read and reread some books. The first was A voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World in which the author travels around North America and the Caribean visiting sites in early American colonization; the Viking settlements in Newfoundland, Columbus' trail in the Dominican Republican, Spanish and French sites in Florida, the south and southwest, Jamestown and ending up back in Plymouth (he mentioned Cartier in a paragraph, and never visited Quebec). You ended up learning more about what isn't known, and about the author than you expect, but it's an entertaining read for Thanksgiving trolling material. For instance, the anthropomorphized raccoon in Disney's Pocahontas didn't really exist.
The second book was a rereading of The Bitter Woods, my copy is falling apart. Just the thing to get one in the mood for winter.
It's looking like I'll be heading back to northern Ohio at the end of next week. I should get a free nights' stay at the hotel after this. I'll have to pack extra provisions, too, I-90 is whiteout land until April. My wife is a little upset about the upcoming trip, but it could be worse. It looks good and should help me stay off the layoff list (5% in January), and it's at the end of the week. Her work schedule is later on Friday than on Monday, so aside from bus confusion, it makes an easier morning.
In other wife work news, she got a free bottle of Cab-Merlot from the local winery. The only other person in her office who likes red wine is her doctor, who already has a full cellar, and they haven't been drinking red wine since his wife is nursing.
In other local news, Kodak has announced no pay raises or 401k matching for 2009. Like I said in the nickel advice blog, anyone still working at Kodak should not complain, their business model is dead.
I have trip planning to do, and an upgrade to test, if our build ever finishes.
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