"How old are you?"

"Racing car."

"Yes, I see that. Now how old are you?"

"Racing car!"

"Ok. Yes. But how old are you?"

"RACING CAR BIRTHDAY!"

Yeah. Move over, Thomas. We've got a new vehicle passion. Can you guess the theme of this year's birthday party?

On the way home from Prince Edward Island (still need to put those pictures together), my Bride tossed out some ideas to celebrate a Racing Car Birthday. About halfway through the list, she mentioned soap box cars. I can't remember the rest, now. Partly because I was trying to spot a moose (they had about a million signs for them on the road - it's kind of raising expectations, there, you know Canada? Don't' put the signs out if you don't want me to expect some moose. And why don't I ever see a moose in a zoo? I've been to San Diego. No moose. Dear Canada. That's just selfish.), and partly because I had already sprinted halfway down the path of figuring out what I'd need to do that. Soap box cars are just 50's enough, with the right little bit of splintery-crash potential to make it Boy Birthday Worthy. I think my Bride spotted the gleam that crept into my eye, because she started talking about helmets or something. I sort of tuned it out, so I can't say exactly.

That weekend, by sheer random chance, I found a really old wagon in the swap shed at the dump (or more properly, the transfer station). It was about to fall apart, with rotting wooden panels. The wheels, however, were only slightly rusty, and otherwise in perfect working order.

Clearly, the universe wanted me to build soap box cars.

The first monday back in the office, I trotted over at lunch to a nearby bike shop and asked for 4 identical front tires, cheapish. That got me a funny look, so I had to explain that a) back wheels have gears. I'm not interested in gears. And b) I'm planning on totally mis-using the tires when I get them. When I explained what I had in mind, the bike guy's eyes lit up. (Cambridge Bicycle - those guys seriously rock the bikes). He talked me out of the 10-speed road-racing wheels I was eyeing, and into something a little more rugged and straightforward on the 20" BMX side.

A quick trip to the lumber yard later for some extra bits, and I was ready to roll. Er. Pardon the pun.

Soap box cars are basically 4 wheels on a cart intended to roll down hill under gravity power. In other words, no engine. They usually have steering of some sort. Or at least, I assume so. I'd never actually built one before, so I was kind of going off guess work, so to speak. But the wagon's front set of wheels already had a perfectly good steering handle, so I figured I'd make the most of that, and mounted it to the base of my theoretical first soap box car.

The other one was a bit trickier, though. The rear wheels on your typical Red Flyer wagon are fixed. No handy steering column. Some thoughtful wandering up and down the aisles of the super-box hardware store though, and I had spotted a heavy duty caster held together with a single bolt.

I took the bolt out, removed the wheel, and built a new platform to fix the rear wagon wheels to. Instant pivot. Damn, I'm good.

Mostly the rest of the body was just for show, and I sort of freehanded some rear cabinet areas for the back of the soapbox car. The shape wasn't important, really, except that it would act both as a seat back and a place to fix the rear wheels.

Because of that latter point, I bought heavy duty, 3/4" plywood. I figured that'd hold up to at least a couple of weekends of heavy duty 3 year old use.

The bike wheels are mounted simply through the plywood with a large washer and bolt. The axle was just about long enough to go through once I had drilled out the plywood with a forstner bit to fit the washer flush to the surface.

I added a short 2"x4" underneath the body to stiffen the plank, and the whole thing was surprisingly sturdy.

Soon enough I had the fronts on as well, along with some panels to fill in the box pieces on front and rear. For the jury-rigged rear wheel/castor pivot one, I had to create a wooden handle. This sort of worked, and I was getting a little tired at this point. What the hell. They're 3. What are they going to do, call the Soap Box police on me?

It was about this time that I took one of these near complete cars down the hill in my back yard for a test drive. I figured if it could take me, it would hold up to most anything the kids would do. Of course, I'm a little tall for the car, but the hill wasn't so very steep. I shoved myself in and jumped down the hill. Hard to steer. I made it most of the way down before I tipped the whole thing over and tumbled out onto the grass.

Hmm. Maybe some guard rails are in order.

My Bride made one more half-hearted suggestion that I add "bring your own helmets" to the birthday party invitation. Ha!

We were lined up and ready to go.

Look! Racing car cupcakes! (my Bride is quite crafty in her own right).

Soon enough, the kids came over and leapt into the cars. There was some notion that we'd do proper, organized races. Instead, we sat on the patio and watched the kids hurtle up and down the hill.

Sometimes two at a time.

Sometimes solo.

Or with a push.

We didn't even have to push them back up the hill. They were having so much fun, they'd do it themselves.

Or help one another out.

Eventually, the Critter and a couple of the bigger kids figured out that they could actually perch up on the back of the car, and ride down that way.

Eventually, there was cake. It also had cars on it.

And at the end of the party, everybody got their own Piston Cup. Everybody wins!

Happy birthday, little buddy. Enjoy 3. It doesn't last long enough.

I had started to do the work myself, framing out the edges and running wiring, but quickly realized that while I still possess the rudimentary knowledge to do these things, I was quickly going to get into finicky bits of plastering between the beams (because of course I wanted to keep them exposed) that would take me so long that the kid would be ready to move in, and then move out again for college at the end of the same week. So I called in some help.

There was a little bit of demolition to do when the guys got started, and as they pulled up some of the old, unfinished floorboards, I had them set them all aside. It's not every day you come across 12+ inch wide, 300 year old heartwood pine planks.

I had an idea to build a coffee table from my buddy, Steve, which besides being a fun project to re-use some of the pieces of our house, would give me a great excuse to buy some new toys. I mean "tools."

I replaced my 100 year old Craftsman jointer/planer with a beautiful new one from Delta, as well as a factory refurbished thickness planer from Hitachi. I've always wanted the latter, and it made ridiculously quick work of planing these boards smooth and clean. With some pre-turned legs I picked up, I soon had a lovely coffee table in the raw, so to speak.

I joined the boards with rabbetted joints, so that any expansion or contraction wouldn't create major gaps, and added a breadboard edge (that's the strip alongside each short edge) with my biscuit cutter. And then gave the whole thing a good sanding with the belt sander and then orbital sander. I was really giving my shop a decent work out, after sitting mostly idle since I made the Boy's bed over the winter.

I removed all the nails (except one little bugger that I didn't find until my planer started shooting out sparks when it hit it. Sneaky bastard. After which I ran back to my desk and ordered a metal detector wand to make sure I didn't kill the new blades), but I left the nail holes and blemishes alone. There are some knot holes and wear marks that sanding smooth just won't help. But that's all part of the charm.

I played around with a few different stains and finally settled on Minwax' English Chestnut 233, and applied a couple of coats to get a nice, even, dark finish that fits in well with our other furniture.

The coffee table was destined for the big empty space in our media room, where we sit and comfortably consume tv, or a netflix movie. We had been desperate for a place to put our mojitos while playing the Xbox, or toss the pad thai container on take out night.

Knowing it would get some pretty hard wear, I put several coats of semi-gloss polyurethane on it, sanding between each one. I used an oil based poly because it's more durable. But man, what a pain to have to wait 4 hours between each coat. This is really the most unsatisfying part of building something, I tell you.

But eventually, I schlepped it up to its proper place, and it fit right in.

Note, the actual dimensions of the coffee table are 47" x 27". It's just a stupidly large family room.

(as you can see, we're finally catching up with the rest of Western Civilization and have started watching the back episodes of "24".)

Next project: tree house.

(note, more in-progress pictures of the coffee table can be seen here, if you want.)

I (and a few others at the company I work) have been featured by Apple (you know... that big, famous company that Steve Jobs runs) for the deployment of iPhones (one of my projects) and - more importantly - our app, Vaxtrak we wrote to help parents and families keep up with their immunizations and find their nearby flu clinics.

Watch the video.

Or, if you want, read the article.

Even better - go download VaxTrak for yourself.

This article was about 3 months in the making. Mostly in the legal reviews and clearances. True story - they filmed the 'hand shots' in the video the Monday after I had been tilling up my garden. They asked if I'd be offended if they used a 'stand-in' instead of filming my blistered, grubby paws.

You hear that, mother? Your son had a hand model stand in for him on camera.

Ha!

A couple of weeks ago, we had our friends the Wylies come out for a visit from San Francisco. They have 12 or 13 kids, at last count, the oldest of which are entering that age where they're forced to study American history for the first time, and learn all of SchoolHouse Rock by heart. They drove up and down the New England coast for a week or so, hitting Boston, Philadelphia, New York and D.C. And while they were staying with us, we took them out to Concord and let them soak in all the Revolutionary goodness.

What did our friend Darcy find most impressive? Archie Bunker's chair in the Smithsonian.

She's Canadian. We must make excuses.

While they were here, we took them out to Old Sturbridge Village, a kind of living museum, recreating life in New England in the 1830's. I had heard about this a few times before, but we hadn't made it out there until this summer. I fell in love with the place, and immediately bought us a 3 year family membership. I'll write more about that another time.

But this is one of my finds there:

Make my own cheese? Be the master of my very own bacteria, cultures and cholesterol?

Oh hells yes.

I came home and put out a foodie-call to a couple of buddies of mine to see if they'd like to come over and try our hands at making some of our very own cheeses. How hard could it be? All you need is some rennet (from the stomach lining of any of a variety of dairy animals), some citric acid, some not-ultrapasteurized milk (hmm. this one might take a little thinking), and some time.

Both my buddies answered the call, and just said to schedule a time. In fact, they were so positive about the idea, that I began to get a little nervous. I'd never done this before, and I would hate to poison us all. I started thinking that a test batch might be in order.

The milk was a bit tricky. The desire for the longest shelf-life possible means that they take pretty much all the good stuff out of your milk, and break down the lovely, delicious fat, proteins and bacteria that make for a good cheese. But some research on dairies that use low-heat pasteurization (and thank heavens for once that all the old hippies get vocal about 'back to nature' milk) and a quick trip to Whole Foods, and I'm good to go.

I started with mozzarella. According to the book, you can make mozzarella even if you're a ham-fisted monkey, and the tolerance on the milk and process is pretty wide. Better yet, it promised that the whole thing could be accomplished in about 30 minutes, and without much in the way of equipment or experience.

1 gallon of milk is supposed to equal about 12oz of mozzarella. Sounds good. The investment is small. The Critter even gave me a hand so that I could take photos to document the whole thing.

After a few minutes in the pot, I got the temperature up to 90 degrees F. Add your citric acid, and the rennet, with "a vigorous up and down stirring motion". I have no idea why up and down. I'm sure there's solid science behind it, though.

Once done, just push it over to the side, and let it rest a few minutes.

The whole thing turns kind of custard-y. Sort of solid, sort of not. This is the beginnings of the set, and the separation of the whey from the milk solids.

You end up cutting this up - I am pretty sure the cutting part just makes the next part a little more simple.

Look, Ma - curds!

Heat this back up to about 110 degrees now, and stir slowly. It continues to separate further - eventually looking sort of like something you're not sure is ever going to turn into mozzarella, let alone something edible.

Meanwhile, I've been heating up a giant pot of water on the other side, to a not-boiling-but-I-spilled-some-on-myself-while-I-was-checking-the-temperature-and-holy-mother-of-god-it-hurt 185 degrees. (note: the directions were really this precise. What they really mean is "we're going to use this to warm stuff up later. You need it warm enough for that without boiling." But being precise I'm sure just avoids people writing in with questions like "how hot is "hot""?

Now it's time to separate the curds & whey.

Every time I said "curds & whey" I kept thinking Miss Muffet actually sat down and ate this stuff, just like this? If only she knew that (according to my instructions) she was only minutes away from delicious mozzarella! Because this whey stuff looks pretty unappetizing...

After a few minutes of ladling, I have a colander full of curds.

Our Canadian friend, Darcy, might have been unable to proceed at this point because of the temptation to turn these into poutine, but we pressed on through.

Dip the colander into the not-boiling water a few times until it's stretchy and melty. Add salt, and pull like taffy.

In almost no time, we had what looked and felt remarkably like real mozzarella cheese. It was still warm, and the recipe encouraged us - encouraged us, mind you - to pinch off some and try some right there.

Holy crap. We made really good mozzarella cheese.

Start to finish, it really was less than 30 minutes. I dropped it in an ice water bath for 10 minutes to firm up, and we made paninis with fresh tomatoes, basil and mozzarella for lunch.

Over all, the process is ridiculously easy, and definitely gave me the confidence to try some additional cheese recipes with our friends. Cheddar & Parmesan next, and then I think I'll work my way up to a deliciously, decadently stink Stilton.

Note: All cheese making materials, ingredients and instructions can be found on Cheesemaking.com

There is one exception to my crotchety cantankerousness, however. When I'm packed and headed to the airport to visit our office in Siena, Italy, my complaining takes on a hollow, empty tone. Probably the smile on my face, and the anticipatory drool collecting in the corner of my mouth when thinking about the meals I've already lined up in my head, they might be giving me away.

I've said it before, but it's worth repeating - Italy has got to be one of the most perfect places on earth. There's a reason the Pope lives here. And it's mostly the menu. In three days, I found a perfect barolo, I ate hand made pasta in a sauce made with bitter chocolate and melts-like-butter tender wild boar meat, found two different preparations of cured lard that were each individually good enough to make my heart glad to sacrifice a year or so of existence, just for one more bite.

I even ate gelato. I'm not a fan of ice cream, but here, everything is different.

Look at the richness of this display! How can you resist this? Everything is made on site, fresh, by an ancient tribe of singing Italian trolls that were domesticated by Franciscan monks sometime in the 9th century A.D. (I made up that last part. About the monks. The singing part is totally true.)

My tradition when visiting is to get a double scoop of the banana gelato and walk down to the Piazza del James Bond, where I enjoy the sunshine, the funny tourist groups pointing their cameras in wild circles, the funnier natives making fun of the funny tourists, and savor the freshly made banana goodness. Then I take out my phone and call my Bride to tell her where I am and what I'm doing. This time I took a picture and sent it to her, with my banana gelato all shadowed in the foreground, which added to the spicy-fun flavor of gooey rubbing-it-in that is better than chocolate.

Siena actually has two of my favorite restaurants in the entire world. Two. In one place. One of which is Taverna di San Giuseppe, which is partly my favorite because it is so much fun to say in a bad Italian accent. (And if I try and do an Italian accent, it's bound to be bad). But it's also my favorite because it is built out of an old Etruscan cave. And they serve giant sides of bloody cow parts (fiorentina) by asking you "how many kilos would you like?". What can be wrong with this?

My other favorite is simply l'osteria dei rossi, which translates loosely as "that guy's restaurant on Rossi street". It's low key and informal, and the owner is always there. He is generally in a bad mood, and is extremely passionate about his food. I think the bad mood comes from his expectation that very few people eating there actually deserve to try his dishes. He quite literally will not let you order a bad food combination. You cannot order bruschetta with tomatoes in his restaurant. Because that is not Tuscan. You will have crushed olives on your bruschetta. You will wait for it to be prepared, instead of being pulled out of a freezer and reheated. And you will complement the chef. Because he was right. It was the right choice after all.

In a momentary fit of bad judgement, my colleague jokingly suggested that I mix my after dinner grappa with my coffee for an 'Italian-Irish coffee'. The owner over heard and almost threw us out.

But this, this is my favorite part:

Check out the sign.

"Here Eat Slowly"

This is the summation of Tuscany for me:

Here eat slowly.
Here sip your wine.
Here try an extra slice of salumi.
Here stroll down the ancient streets.
Here listen to the stones aging.
Here enjoy life.

Critter: OK, I'm ready.

Me: Yeah, I don't think so. You can bring your markers and stuff to the restaurant. But leave the bunny.

Critter: But Daddy, this is a country theme. The bunny goes with my outfit.

How can you argue with logic like that?

I'm not terribly Catholic - in fact, I'm not at all Catholic, but when I asked my Bride to marry me, I kind of had to take a crash course in the whole Papal domain. I was raised Presbyterian (by my Father, The Surgeon), who was rarely openly religious or even very regular in his church attendance. I do, however, remember being in very deep trouble when I hit someplace along the 10 or 11 age range and decided that I wanted to sleep in, rather than get up and go to service on a day he decided We Were Going To Church.

I recall a couple of periods in my childhood where church became a Big Deal in our house. I think we went for a solid year to one of the first larger 'non-denominational' churches on the outskirts of Atlanta. I can't remember the name of the church, but I do remember we passed a Levitz furniture store on the way too and from each Sunday. It had a big sign. The church should maybe have had a bigger sign.

I also remember we all got re-baptized at that church. It was a Saturday, and the church was shockingly and unusually empty - I had never seen it as anything other than full of hundreds of people. Just the pastor, my parents and I. And this was the full on dunking, not the half-hearted Presbyterian sprinkle on the forehead. At the end, I was presented a Bible with my name inscribed in gold leaf on the cover. Which I still have, along with a collection of other Bibles, a copy of the Apocrypha, a Book of Mormon, and a Koran. (color me curious). About a year or so later, my parents got divorced. Huh. Looking back on that, there may have been some "the family that prays together stays together" action there.

I remember mostly my Picture Bible, though. It was like a huge comic book, except with Jesus as Spiderman. Or maybe Iron Man. Well - for the New Testament. In the Old Testament, Moses was more like the Incredible Hulk. Less green, but plenty of 'Hey Pharoah, you won't like me when I'm angry' action. This was some seriously riveting stuff for an 8 year old, with loads of the Smiting action. I tried to find a copy of that for the Critter, but with little luck.

For you Catholics in the audience, it may surprise you to know that most other churches don't hand out play-by-play programs in the pews, with the selected readings and psalms pre-written in paint-by-number formats. We just mostly got a bible and an occasional pointer from the preacher. All through high school, I dated a girl who went to the Church of Christ (a little more aggressively Protestant than most, and far more so than the sedate and urbane come-as-you-are Presbyterian church I was raised in), where Preacher Dave might jump from Revelations to Exodus to Luke to maybe a little bit of The Letter of Saint Reagan to The Corinthians in the same sermon, and you were expected to keep up, flipping furiously through your handy copy to the quoted copy.

My girlfriend and her family were more religious than most, and I was in love and willing to do most anything to impress, probably attending more services in those couple of years than I have attended before or since, combined. To find ways to pass the time, I probably read the actual non-picture Bible two or three times, cover to cover in those Sundays.

When I first started going to Catholic church after getting married, I was as impressed by the ceremony and the ritual as I was perplexed by the uniformity. Compared to us enthusiastic but naive Protestants, these Catholics have this service thing nailed down to a science. Over the first few years we attended Mass in California, Texas, Ireland and Georgia. They all had the exact same little books, with the exact same prescribed readings, in the exact same order. As a Catholic, you can walk into any Catholic church in the world, whatever the language, and know exactly when to stand up, kneel, cross yourself, or throw money in the pot. After two thousand years, they pretty much have it down to a science. In fact, the only exception I ever saw was at a Mass in Kilkenny, Ireland, during the World Cup quarter finals. (For us non-Europeans: that's Soccer). The priest basically said we're gonna sing one song, read the part from the Gospels, offer communion, and then we're out of here. Bing, Bam, Boom, See you all next week. Loved it.

Generally speaking I go along with most of it, without crossing myself, taking communion (they politely ask me not to, as a non-Catholic) or saying the various creeds. I'm faithful, without being religious. But I always, always give the hugs.

My favorite part of the Mass, and one that came as the biggest and most pleasant shock, was the offering of peace. Once a Mass, the priest says "turn around and give the fellow next to you a hug." (ok, he actually says "let us offer one another the sign of peace". See? I pay attention.)

And then everyone reaches over and shakes hands (or hugs, if you're feeling extra friendly), greets one another, and says 'peace be with you.' How great is that? Who couldn't use some more of that in your day? Seriously. I think we should all try and do this at least once a day, Mass or no. "Hey buddy. You there on the corner. Yeah, you looking all frowny. Peace be with you. Now come here and give me a hug." I challenge you to try this tomorrow, and see if it doesn't leave you smiling.

If you manage to catch the right Mass, there's an old guy who walks up and down the aisle, shaking every one's hand in the audience, determined to make sure he doesn't leave anybody out. You'll know the one. He probably bought that suit sometime in the late '70's, with the unnaturally shiny-yet-uncomfortable fabric. He might be your uncle-in-law.

Forget all the comforting ritual and routine. I love this part. It's the part I go for. It's the part I wait through the rest of the Mass for (and they put it near the end on purpose, I'm sure of it.) It's the most neighborly thing going, and we Protestants don't have anything to compare. I'm going to be that guy in the '70's suit one day. And you're all going to have to wait for me to go up and down the aisle, determined not to leave anyone out.

As for the Critter, she got through her Communion just fine. Well. Mostly.

She was actually sick the day of Communion. It was a Saturday, and she woke up hurling chunks at about 5am. She vomited a couple more times that morning, but was so excited about getting to wear her new First Communion dress that she begged us to let her go. She swore she'd be ok.

She threw up two more times at church before they began the processional of all the kids that had been preparing for weeks to receive Communion, but promised she'd be alright. If only we'd let her walk in during the processional. She looked green as clover (which given her half islander heritage, is hard to do), and the whole time I sat in the back thinking, "Please don't throw up baby Jesus on the priest. Please don't throw up baby Jesus on the priest." In the back of my head were flashing scenes from The Omen, where Damien had violent & painful reactions from being dragged into a church. Uh-oh. What if that birthmark didn't really say "999"?

Fortunately, she made it through the procession, and to the pew, but had to head one more time for the porcelain receptacle. Which spelled the end of the Communion day for the Critter.

The priests (being priests) were exceptionally kind and solicitous, and made a huge deal out of her. We came back the next day for normal Mass, and she got special attention and the opportunity to take her communion in front of the normal crowd.

And I'm proud to say, she didn't throw up on the priest.

No, you misunderstand. I love my dentist. She's personable, and quirky, and has a great, dry, Brooklyn-Jew-in-exile sense of humor.

Yes, I love my dentist. However, I hate going to the dentist. And my dentist, as much as I love her, is, unfortunately, a dentist.

I know lots of folks say they hate the dentist. But seriously. I dread it. I don't fear it - I don't suffer from odontophobia . I dread it. Like biblical dread. Think the Spanish Inquisition. Or spending the holidays with your extended family and your socially awkward, unemployed brother in-law. Or, well, a root canal.

Except I didn't going in for a root canal today. I went in to have my crown fitted.

My dentist's office is right here in my little village, only a couple of miles down the road. It's one of the four businesses in town (not counting the post office). The others being a realtor, our insurance lady (hi, Penny!) and a little general store run by Larry. Who drives a 1956 Chevy pick up truck and for the last four years has been going through the process of reversing the 80 year old dry-town laws. In the 2008 election, Larry managed to take the final step in the process and get a question on the ballot to put the matter to a vote by the town: "Should Carlisle permit and license businesses to sell alcohol such as beer, wine or liquor within town limits."

Businesses. Ha! They meant Larry. The ballot measure could have been re-written: "Who thinks we should let Larry sell beer? Check yes or no," and been equally as valid.

Even though I only go into the dentist once every few months, everybody in the office seems to remember me. They ask about the kids. We talk about that time my Bride brought in her Kindle. The lady at the front desk is a particular sweetheart - she looked at me this morning as I sat my disheveled self down in the waiting room (morning dentist visit == no morning caffeine) and said "I had a dream about you last night, Ken."

Which woke me up just a little, even without the caffeine. Not the sort of thing I hear every day.

The dream, she went on to explain, had something to do with my crown not coming in before my visit. Which, ok, was sort of disappointing. But I had my dread to cling to and distract me from any thought lasting more than a millisecond or two.

I never really knew before what a dental crown was, only that it was something old people got on their teeth shortly just after entering the nursing home, and maybe slightly before Thanksgiving dinners had to be served intravenously. Except a couple of years ago, my very back tooth - the one on the left-hand-top side of my mouth cracked. Right in two. I spat out a chunk of tooth. Which was mildly disconcerting. It didn't hurt, thankfully, but it was the oddest feeling - the gap inside my mouth where my tooth used to be kept drawing my tongue to it, poking & prodding. Try having a conversation while you're wrapping your tongue back on itself to explore the jagged stump of a half-tooth in the back of your mouth.

This tooth was filled with a bit of emergency orthodontia, and mostly back to normal. Except that it never did quite get right - there was a gap, and some oddness, and long story short, a couple of months ago, my dentist announced I needed a crown. To which I responded I already had a couple, but I chose not to wear them in public much since that one incident in a San Francisco bar. She didn't laugh. But I think she called me something in Yiddish.

I learned then that a crown involves grinding your tooth down to a nub, and capping it with a porcelain, tooth-shaped replacement. Huh. Imagine that. What will they think of next?

OK. Er. Sign me up. I can do that, I guess. Um, there will be novocain, right? Sure. No problem. Multiple shots later, and then much grinding ensues.

Enter the dread.

Really. That sound makes me crawl under the chair, through the floor, and pull the rocks back in over me. Having that sound reverberating from your mouth and right through your skull is enough to reduce me to a quivering lump of useless flesh my seven year old daughter would be to ashamed to admit knowing.

And then - it gets worse. They have to send away to a lab to have the crown made. A lab in Georgia. Hell, I'm from Georgia. Most of the labs there these days are run by not particularly clean men named Ernie, have a suspicious amount of knock-off Sudafed going in the back door, and ever-so-occasionally explode.

(Ha! See what you can learn from watching CSI?)

The turn around time on these things is several weeks. But it's ok, don't worry. They gave me a temp. Oh, goody. Can I eat with this thing? Did I mention I'm going to India for a while? What happens if it falls off while I'm there, and all I have to eat my guavas with is my toothy nub? What will I do?

But I like my dentist because she is funny, and Yiddish, and - most importantly - because she is fast. By the time I had a moment to formulate my fear into articulate questions, she was in her office, and her staff was ushering me out the door. Her speed leaves me too little time to allow my dread to manifest beyond a general agita. And sure enough, I survived India, temporary tooth and all.

Today, I went back in for my permanent crown. Which despite my late night appearance in the receptionists dreams, had made it safely from the labs of Georgia and awaited a (I was promised) swift fitting.

Before the dentist popped off the temporary with a sharp, curved metal hook (do you remember that Bill Cosby sketch? You laughed then because every word was true), she told me, "Most people don't need any painkiller for this part, except for some small, particularly frail children and occasional grandmothers with severe heart conditions. But if you want some novocain, just let me know. I won't judge."

OK. I'm reassured.

She stuck the tool in my mouth, and with a swift twist, off came the temporary.

It didn't hurt exactly. It wasn't comfortable, for sure, and my tongue had retreated to the other side of my mouth, and refused to look at the nubby tooth stump for fear of setting the whole thing off. But I was gave the dentist a nod. We were clear to proceed.

She told me she had to clean off the temporary cement, and stuck one of those whirly brushes with gritty paste on it over the nub.

Alright. Yes, the discomfort ratcheted up a notch, but not too bad. If direct contact with gritty, whirly dentist tools weren't killing me, I figured I was going to survive the next few minutes reasonably intact.

And then, she stuck a suction tube in my mouth. Not on the nub itself. Just in the general vicinity. Like someplace near my lips. And something about the cold air circulating in my mouth cavity wrapped a handful of face nerves into the fist of an invisible, large, tattooed ex-con with anger management issues, and gave him the go ahead to pull, until my eyes made squeaking noises.

"Here. It's in. Now bite down on this for five minutes so it sets."

Never mind me. I'm going to crawl under the chair and curl into a fetal position, silently weeping until you tell me I can leave to nurse the place where my face used to be.

All I can say is, thank God we let Larry sell beer now.

I had sort of shrugged off the fact that BA was on strike when I got on my plane bound for London, but hey - I had a long layover anyway, so I figured as long as they hadn't cancelled the flight, everything would be alright. And worst case, I got stuck in London. How bad could that be, right?

Sure enough, they ran into problems finding enough crew to staff the plane, and needed a few extra hours to sort things out. No problem. I'm in the lounge at Terminal 5. I'll have an extra bacon buttie, and you come wake me up when you're ready to go.

Every hotel in India that I've been to has security out front. Which is kind of reassuring, and just a bit disturbing, when you think about it for a second. I've never seen or had any problems whatsoever, however, and the staff is always lovely, but every time you walk through the doors, you have to surrender your luggage or laptop bag, your phone, and anything else you might think they'd want to see.

Those of you that know me well have seen my weekend attire. It's the same of my traveling attire. A comfortable t-shirt. Jeans, usually due to be replaced before too long. And a leather belt with a pewter belt buckle slightly smaller than a turkey platter with a cowskull on it.

Don't look at me that way. I bought that belt buckle in Oxford, England. So you know that it's classy.

That belt buckle must weigh ten pounds or so. When I hit airport security, it always has to come off and go through the scanner, and usually causes the bored TSA agent to peek into the container, trying to figure out what that dark oval mass could be, and if it could be part of a shoe bomb or something.

At any rate, I don't know what setting they have these hotel metal detectors on, but the mass of metal on my midsection has yet to set off the slightest buzz when I walk through. I think I could stuff an ICBM into my laptop bag and get it through the scanner. Ah well, I suppose the appearance of security is enough to create a sense of comfort?

The planes always land here sometime in the early morning - this time I landed about 7am local time. To get myself on the right schedule, I try and stay up, get out and about, and do something active - avoid as much jet lag as you can. So I asked for a cab, and told the driver to take me down to the Old City.

On my first trip here, I spent a lot of time wandering around in this part of Hyderabad, and fell in love. The people, the smells, the shopping - it's all so very vibrant and alive. Like when we went to Cairo several years ago, life is all out on the street, in all its colors. It's an amazing feeling.

The driver, on the other hand, took one look at my western, whitey self and said, 'um, Mr. Ken.. are you sure?'

Oh yeah. The Old City is also the poorer section of town, and Hyderabad is a city of two religions - Hindu (mostly the newer part of town) and Muslim (Old City). They've gotten along just fine for the past 500 years or so for the most part, though, so I wasn't too worried. The looking-down-the-nose at the other side is generally more akin to why Georgia Tech alum disdain attendees of UGA. It's not that they're bad people. They're just not quite as blessed as we are.

I had the guy drop me off at Charminar again - a fantastic monument that is the heart of the Old City. It's surrounded by markets and street shopping, and thronged with people on a Sunday. I asked the driver to wait for me for a while while I walked down some of the streets and did a little tourist shopping.

He clucked his teeth and told me not to shop here. He'd take me to his cousin's place across the river where I'd be sure to get a much better deal. Yeah. I'm sure, buddy. Thanks - just wait here for a bit, ok?

These guys were cleaning anything brass and had an awesome display I could have spent an hour looking at.

And I had no idea what this guy was selling. But I wanted to buy it in bunches.

Glass bangles! Already bought some on the last trip, though. Not buying more.

I was getting a bit peckish, and started looking for something to eat by this point. Now, before you get all skeptical - you can safely buy and consume street food, if you aren't too dumb about it. Look for things you see being cooked. Avoid things being pulled up out of a bucket of dubious origins. Etc.

For example:

This guy is mashing raw sugar cane into a cup, mixing it with a little tap water, and serving it up for pennies. I like to call this "Death Juice." You should avoid it.

On the other hand, let me introduce you to my new best friend.

I call him Guava Guy. Guava Guy and I didn't speak the same language, but boy was he happy to see me. He was slicing up his fruit, dipping it into that plastic bag full of salt and red chiles mixed together, and selling this delicious manna fresh and ready to eat. I was paying him 10 rupees (~$0.25) per guava, and ate a couple in about 15 seconds flat.

My driver told me later that you could have bought a kilo of guavas for 20 rupees. Hey. Whatever. He was happy. I was happy. Everybody wins.

Last time I visited, I hadn't seen all these flags - they had been strung up the day before, I found out later, in preparation for some upcoming festival. Not really sure what the festival was about, but it really gave the place an amazingly festive air. Green flags with the crescent moon (for Islam) were almost everywhere. On the arch, over the streets, on the shrines. Many made from mylar, and sparkling in the 90 degree sun.

Down the occasional, apparently Hindu street, you'd find a few half-hearted attempts to respond with orange flags. Like boosters at an Away game. You know, just to show the colors.

What I didn't see, and what I didn't know, was that apparently some of the flag-hanging, rambunctious youths were getting out of hand a few streets over. "Green!" "Orange!" "Green!" "Orange!"

OK. I have no idea what they were really saying. But I totally missed this auto-rickshaw burning.

The article makes it sound like half the city was in the street with pitchforks and torches. I can tell you I didn't/haven't seen anything like that. But there was a curfew imposed a few hours after I made my way back from the district. I'm hoping it wasn't because I was way too generous with Guava Guy.

Either way, I would head back down that way in a heartbeat - we all know youths are up to no good. Just avoid the ones with the extra packs of matches and that special gleam in their eyes, and hang out where the locals do, and you'll be fine.

Hyderabad is beautiful.

This past week saw about 20 inches of rain fall in 72 hours. At one point, when the water was rising rapidly enough for our sump pump to emit a little whimper of dismay, and the flow of groundwater streaming in through the nearly 300 year old stacked-stone foundation of our farmhouse basement was creating a sopping mess of whatever we happened to have left on the floor (fortunately, all the meat in the cellar is hanging), I had to run down to a neighbors and borrow a bigger wet vac. When the rain kept up for another day after that, I began trying to lay in a supply of gopher wood and looking up how many feet there are in a cubit.

But eventually, the sun came out, and we're still (knock on wood) experiencing weather in the middle double digits. It's supposed to hit the upper sixties tomorrow!

However, this is Massachusetts, I remind myself, and it's only March. I have to be wary of anything Mother Nature promises before May. While my brother, The Historian, has been calling me from his home in South Carolina, telling me about the vegetables he's already set out, we are still some weeks away from being able to safely plant our garden. April blizzards are a not unknown occurrence up here so far north of the Mason-Dixon line.

To give ourselves some sort of outlet for our burgeoning spring fever, we've taken to poring over the half dozen or so seed catalogs that have shown up at our door in the past months. Everything from a gorgeous glossy heirloom vegetable catalog to the more mundane (but still enticing) list of crossbred-for-heartiness, might-just-be-genetically-modified seeds and seedlings.

If you've never looked at a seed catalog before, I highly recommend you go find some of your own. We had a few on the counter when we had our recent cider tasting party, and I swear to you, half the people that came by spent endless minutes thoughtfully flipping through the pages, oohing and ah-ing over the colorful images of tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. It is probably a symptom of Northern Winter Life that our neighbors all find the same, almost sexual appeal in dreaming of seeing a fresh ear of corn again.

As much as we really fell in drooly love with veg like the Turkish Striped Monastery Tomato or Laxton's Progress No. 9 Garden Pea , we had to face up to the fact that we are really not skilled enough gardeners to attempt some of these more delicate, but no doubt delicious varietals. We need things that include descriptions like "hearty" or "robust," or maybe even "it doesn't matter how hard you try, you can't kill this."

We ended up with steady, somewhat less exotic Gurney's compiling a list that contains delicious looking, but somewhat un-inspired items like "Gotta Have It Hybrid Sweet Corn," "Improved Golden Wax Bush Beans," and "These Collard Greens Will Fill Your Freezer".

Ok. I might have elaborated on that last one. (But it's true.)

In a moment of organization inspired by my Bride and the home-bound limitations of the incessant rainfall, I carefully organized our order & vegetable plans into an elaborate Excel spreadsheet, complete with notes about what farmer's market stand we'll be sourcing our seedlings from (including getting all of our tomatoes from the Concord Tomato Lady. I don't remember her name, but we ended up making the most amazing home-made ketchup from her crop last year. Gorgeous.)

With that done, I dialed up Gurney's and placed an order for $350 of seeds and such (including 2 pecan trees, which apparently you can grow way up here at this northerly latitude. Where the heck am I going to plant those? And will my Yankee neighbors know what a pecan tree is?) Either we're going to have a bumper crop of goodness this year, or I'm pissing away a bunch of money on tiny packets of disappointment once again this year.

But either way, I can't wait for the weekend. The weatherman has promised us some more sunshine!

But first, let's talk alcohol. Our attempt at cider making had been percolating in the cellar for long enough, keeping our hanging meat company. I had nothing but a couple of very rough guidelines from a couple of books to go on, but I figured not-quite-five-months was about the right fermentation time, and I did what any good amateur brewer would do: I brought up the buckets, lined up the bottles, and gathered the children.

I honestly had no idea if we had managed to create something drinkable when we brought it up out of its resting place. The steps to create a hard (fermented) cider are pretty much to put a bunch of raw cider into a bucket, add some sulfide to kill off the bacteria, come back a day later with a bunch of sugar of one sort or another, add some yeast, and seal it up. Don't touch it for lots of months.

I opened this not knowing if we had created 15 gallons of vinegar or something else equally unpalatable. Like sarin gas, maybe. Fortunately, it turned out to be remarkably... not terrible. Actually better than that. It was almost... really good.

Wait, take a look again at my kids helping me bottle it all. Have you ever seen anything cuter than a 2 year old operating one end of a siphon?

We created batches of 'still' cider, and batches of carbonated 'long necks'. We painstakingly crafted labels for our brew, marking the batch that was "sweet(er)" and "less sweet". [What's the difference? Well, I used two different kinds of yeast, and two different kinds of sugar - honey & brown sugar. Unfortunately, I may have forgotten to label what went into which bucket. And so it's possible that I don't have any way of knowing how to recreate our favorite (the "sweet(er)"). This oversight on my part might drive my Bride - the Scientist by training and trade - just a little bit insane. Just a little.)

After a couple of weeks of additional carbonation time, we invited over a bunch of neighbors and friends for a taste test. Critics agree, it didn't suck. We all pretty much preferred it a little bit sweeter (the other tastes more 'yeasty' - a bit more like beer, actually. For the record, both ended up at right about 6% alcohol in the end).

Ok. One more picture of the Critter and the finished, labeled bottles. I really just took this picture to show you her shirt. You love it, I know. (If you want one of your own, go here)

We'll definitely be doing the cider thing again this fall - it's certainly not an instant gratification thing, but I'm happy as heck with the final product, all in all.

Which is good, because after a day clearing a season's bracken and crap from the garden bed, I was in need of something to relax the aches.

Fortunately, my pair of young bottlers were on hand to help out once again.

Those kids can be shockingly useful at times.

"Yeah?"

"I know what 4 x 4 is."

"Oh yeah?"

"16"

"Who told you? That was a secret."

"No. It's four 4's."

"Who is revealing these things to you? You must tell me before it's too late and you learn more."

"Also. 10 x 10 is 100. Because that's ten 10's."

"I demand you tell me who is telling you all of the secrets."

"It's not a secret. I learned it on my Fast Math program."

"What? I'm going to arrest them."

"Daddy. That's on the computer. You can't arrest it."

"I will arrest the creators. Or have them arrested. I know people. I used to be a spy."

"You're weird, Daddy."

"You must not say any more out loud. They'll know you know."

"Daddy. Shhh."

*Note: This is just a down payment for all the money she's going to cost me in college. Also, it makes me giggle.

Went to Mexico and:
- Cooked with Mayans

Read a bunch of books:
- Freedom Inc
- What the Dog Saw
- The Vampire Earth series
- The Mysterious Benedict Society

Found some new blogs to follow:
- Design for Mankind
- Gaping Void (found him by picking up his book: Ignore Everybody)
- Robert Scoble (I've known about this guy for a long time. Why wasn't I reading him before?)
- Seth Godin (ok. I've been following him for a while. I just wanted to pass on the goodness).

Found a couple of other online resources that I'll keep handy:
- An awesome article about Mexican cookware: finally ordered my own olla and cazuelas
- Royalty free icons and clipart - always handy

Cooked a lot:
- Hung some more pancetta
- Had new (and middling new) friends over for a mexican feast - trying my hand at tamales for the first time, and making churros from scratch.

... and started banjo lessons again.

Oh. And VaxTrak (our very own iPhone app) is up to about a thousand downloads. Just by word of mouth.

This year is off to a kick-ass start.

Type in "Why". Let it guess what you were going to ask.

Ask yourself: "How did it know...?"

Stop.

Just think about the comparison for a minute.

Scary, isn't it?