Went out to Ambrose Farms today for some strawberry picking. This is what I came back with.
This was only one bucket too (minus the handful I ate while cleaning them off). Delicious.
Strawberry haul
Charleston Eats: Madra Rua
Irish Stew
Fish and Chips
Ramp building
Got involved with Ramp It Up today. Their mission is a simple one: build wheel chair ramps for people who need them. The original plan was to gather for a kick-off breakfast, then disperse to various areas to build the ramps. That got nixed by the weather though. Instead a few people ended up at the disAbility Resource Center where we assembled the sections that will later end up being assembled into wheel chair ramps on site. I did a lot of board cutting, while others took the pieces I cut and assembled them into the different sections. Later, those pieces will be delivered to a house somewhere, and more people will assemble them into a ramp that will make it easier for someone to get into their house.
Knowing I helped play a role in that makes me feel good.
Ramp It Up has only just started up, but there’s already a list of 30 requests for wheel chair ramps. Want to help?
Review: Heaven by Mur Lafferty
My first encounter with Mur Lafferty was at CREATESouth 2010, where she gave a very entertaining keynote speech.
The last few days I’ve been entertaining myself with her audio book series Heaven. The Afterlife Series started off in 2006 with Heaven and continues with Hell, Earth, Wasteland and concludes with War.
For me, the measure of a good book is how often my brain churns around in the world and with the characters. Books like Dune, Lord of the Rings, most anything by Robert Heinlein have all given my brain vast worlds to explore and have fun in.
Although I’ve only recently finished Mur Lafferty’s Afterlife series, it has been spinning in my head since I started listening. It’s a story that takes many different elements and combines them all together into an entertaining tale. Take two people, kill them, send them into the afterlife, turn them into gods that never quite grasp the full extent of their god-ness and see what happens.
When I’m listening to things, whether it’s music, podcasts, audiobooks or the radio, my brain usually ends up tuning it out. Heaven managed to keep my brain entertained enough to keep listening. Mur does a good job of reading the story, and most of the time it’s easy to tell the different characters apart. There is the occasional sprinkling of swear words in there, so probably not something you’d want to listen to with kids around.
The entire series is available from Podiobooks.com and is just under 18.5 hours (69 files, ~850 MB). Definitely worth checking out.
CREATESouth 2011
Had a good time at today’s CREATESouth. Got to meet up with friends, eat some tasty BBQ and sit in on some good sessions.
Attendance seemed to be pretty good this year with a lot of new faces.
Lunch by Andre Pope and Proud Purveyors of Pork was excellent as usual. I even managed to win some of their sauces and rub. Looking forward to trying it out on the two Boston butts in my freezer.
First session of the afternoon was the Photography Hacks session by Kreg Steppe. He went over a few simple little hacks and gadgets that could be done pretty easily and inexpensively. The coffee filter gray card for setting the white balance was pretty nifty.
Next session was one on building mobile apps. Didn’t go into too much depth, but introduced a few interesting looking tools and suggestions. A good session for whetting the appetite.
The last session I went to was Homebrew 101. Although I doubt I’ll ever get into brewing my own beer (just not that heavy a beer drinker) it was interesting to see everything that goes into the process.
There was one more session and then the after party, but it was time for me to leave so I could get back to the dogs. A great day and I got to learn something at each session I went to.
CREATESouth is looking for new volunteers to help with organizing next year’s event. If you’re interested, sign up! It’s a great event to be involved in.
Objective: Get my copy of Home-Ec 101 autographed by the author.
Status: Completed
