Crosswalks to Nowhere

Charging, Old School

2011-06-01T03:22:22Z

My dad recently gave me this battery charger, an Allstate 6/12-volt "Battery Booster," which was a fixture in our garage as I was growing up. The last time I actually used this device was to juice up the dead battery in my '74 VW Super Beetle.

The unit was originally purchased around 1957, according to my dad, and thanks to my father-in-law's extensive library of Sears catalogs I found this similar unit being sold in the Fall of 1962:

I haven't plugged it in yet, but I've been assured it still works...

More Spring

2011-05-25T03:22:22Z

Spring's Arrival

2011-05-18T03:22:22Z

The crabtree in front of our house goes into full bloom for about a week each Spring. This year it just happened, indicating a late Chicago Spring.

Now we just need the temperatures to start rising...

Chicago Evening

2011-05-11T03:22:22Z

Lisa received her M.Ed at UIC recently-- a cause for much celebration here!

We made an evening of the event, heading to Greektown for dinner after the commencement ceremony.

Cinco de Mayo: Margarita Cake!

2011-05-04T03:22:22Z

One of my office mates mentioned that we should have margaritas in the office for Cinco de Mayo. I've worked at places where this was pretty much encouraged, but since we live in more politically correct and liability-aware times there needs to be another way to celebrate in the workplace.

Over the years I've had success with making a rum cake at the holidays, and I figured someone had worked out a cake made with tequila. Sure enough, I was right.

The Margarita Cake recipe on the next page can be found on a couple different web sites, but I made a couple of minor modifications. The main change is that I substituted yellow cake mix and 2 tablespoons of orange extract for the orange cake mix-- this worked nicely and provides a good baseline for the cake, but I already have ideas for next time. I also used our "go-to" tequila, Jose Cuervo Tradicional Reposado, which adds a very nice, even tequila flavor.

The cake was a hit-- it was gone in record time. Save this recipe for next year-- or make it now!

]]> Margarita Cake --- Ingredients: Cake: 1 (18.25 ounce) package orange cake mix (or: yellow cake mix and 2 tablespoons orange extract) 1 (3.4 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix 4 eggs 1/2 cup vegetable oil 2/3 cup water 1/4 cup lemon juice 1/4 cup tequila 2 tablespoons triple sec liqueur Glaze (these are the "official" measurements, but I did ours to taste-- and it made quite a difference): 1 cup confectioners' sugar 1 tablespoon tequila 2 tablespoons triple sec liqueur 2 tablespoons lime juice Cake Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 10 inch Bundt pan with spray shortening and flour. In a large bowl, combine: cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, oil, water, lemon juice, 1/4 cup tequila and 2 tablespoons triple sec. Beat for 2 minutes. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes; remove cake, set on a rack, and pour glaze over the cake while it's still warm. Glaze Directions: In a small bowl, combine confectioners' sugar with 1 tablespoon tequila, 2 tablespoons triple sec and 2 tablespoons lime juice. Mix until smooth.

On Wisconsin

2011-04-27T03:22:22Z

(My hosting provider had some issues this week, which in turn caused problems for my MovableType installation. While working on the blog I found a bunch of old entries that were never published. Here's one from October 23, 2005.)

Lisa and I went up to Madison for the weekend to see her brother. We got to see the Badgers beat the Purdue Boilermakers in a pretty exciting game.

We also saw Blues Traveler and Carbon Leaf at the Barrymore Theatre that evening. Add a little Ian's Pizza and it was a great day!

Live Peeps

2011-04-20T03:22:22Z

Baby chicks at Rural King in Charleston, IL.

Snoopy Used To Be a Dog, You Know

2011-04-13T03:22:22Z

When I was growing up, I collected Peanuts comic paperbacks. And now that I think about it, I can't remember a single kid who didn't collect them. I had a couple dozen of these books, and I memorized every single frame.

It seemed these books were everywhere: bookstores, drug and grocery stores, and the monthly Scholastic catalog always had the latest collections. Even at a young age, I thought it was pretty cool that Charles Schulz was able to recycle his work for the daily newspaper into paperback collections, coloring books, etc. It led me to create my own comic characters and dreams of fame and merchandising.

In 2004, Fantagraphics books began a (wonderfully) ambitious project to publish every daily and Sunday Peanuts strip in an anthology series, called The Complete Peanuts. The series covers the entire history of the comic from its inception in 1950 to the author's retirement and passing in 2000. Each volume features two years' worth of strips, many of which have not been seen since their original newspaper publication. The latest edition, released yesterday, covers 1979-1980.

A couple months ago I found the series in my local library, so I started checking out volumes in chronological order. I discovered that I remembered many of the strips from my earlier collections, and I also realized something else: these comics-- especially the early ones-- are really funny.

Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the rest of the gang were just part of the landscape by the time I gave up my collection of books as a teenager, and the then-current Peanuts strips in the paper didn't seem all that funny. The distance of time and, likely, the experience of being a parent seem to have given me a new appreciation for Schulz' work. I also noticed how (a) Snoopy acts like a dog; (b) all the kids are actually much younger than they appear to be later on; and (c) Charlie Brown hasn't yet developed the neuroses that turned him into kind of a "Sad Sack." (In fact, in the earlier strips it seems Charlie Brown is a bit more mature than the other kids.)

Around the time I started reading the series, I also discovered an excellent blog called "Roasted Peanuts" by John Harris. Mr Harris posts a Peanuts strip every day and offers a brief analysis of the characters, the artwork, and the humor that makes me appreciate the strips even more. If you're not up for going through The Complete Peanuts, you should absolutely subscribe to this blog. Right now, he's covering early 1954 which, in my opinion, is one of the great periods in the comic's history.

This is another great way to see and appreciate something we started to take for granted.

In Season

2011-04-06T03:22:22Z

Delicious.

Fixin' Up The Sound (or Why Waste Your Money on a New Set of Speakers?)

2011-03-30T03:22:22Z

We recently bought a new TV (a Vizio M370nv -- a very nice unit), and in a classic case of "one thing leading to another," I found myself performing surgery on my JBL J520M home theatre speakers.

The new TV doesn't have the most powerful built-in sound system, but when it's connected to my home theatre-- which hadn't really been used in many years-- it sounds wonderful. It was during a scene in Master and Commander that I heard a buzzing in the left channel, and I pulled the grille off the speaker to see that the foam around the speaker's edge had deteriorated very badly. (The movie's audio scared the daylights out of the cats, though.) I inspected the right speaker and found similar deterioration, but not enough to cause buzzing yet. I bought these speakers in 1995, so they've been in service for a while.

I looked up "speaker repair" and my model number, and I found an outfit called Simply Speakers who sells repair kits for my speakers along with online instructions for making the repair. The kit cost about $25 and showed up very quickly-- just a couple days.

It was a time-consuming process, as there's an amount of scraping, wiping, gluing, and waiting involved, but in the end I had two great sounding speakers. Best of all, I didn't have to start dealing with home-theatre salespeople.

I took some photos during the repair process which you can see on the next page, along with some comments.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, you might want to check out this solution. Time to scare the cats again.

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Speaker unit.

Speaker unit with grille removed.

You can see the deterioration around the perimeter of the woofer. This is actually the right channel speaker, which wasn't as bad as the left. I'd already completed the repair on the other speaker before I decided to document the process-- just in case I botched the job. :)

Removal. This is a JBL P20G woofer for those of you who were wondering (or Googling). I was surprised to see this driver was made in the USA.

Ready for surgery. The paper plate was a great "stage" to perform this work, because the old foam got really nasty and sticky as I was cleaning it, so replacing the plate gave me a new cleaning surface whenever I needed it.

This is the replacement foam.

These are the tools I used: X-Acto knife, Stanley knife, acetone, rubbing alcohol, and Q-Tips and paper towels (not shown). The kit also includes glue for the job, which reminded me a lot of model glue. Note the cup of Biggby coffee in the background-- it helped. :)

Foam removal. Much of it came off by gently using my fingers, but it made a mess as it was disintegrating on contact. A light touch with the X-Acto got the more stubborn pieces off.

Final cleaning. The instructions recommend using rubbing alcohol, but I became a huge fan of acetone during my days working in an electronics assembly plant. It took a few minutes, but it helped in removing all the residue.

Ready for re-foaming.

The new foam, partially glued in place. After a couple hours' drying I reinstalled the speaker into the cabinet and we were back in business!

Thanks again to Simply Speakers for a great product, easy-to-follow instructions, and fast delivery! (This is an unsolicited testimonial: I was not compensated in any way-- I'm just a satisfied customer.)

American English at Peggy Kinnane's 3/19/2011

2011-03-23T03:22:22Z

We spent most of the day Saturday at the Peggy Kinnane's 10th Anniversary Music Festival, where we saw, among other bands, Beatles tribute band American English.

Here they are performing "She Loves You" ...

And here's "Tomorrow Never Knows."

If you're reading this on Facebook, you can click "View Original Post" below or click here to link to my blog for the full posting

Sunday Breakfast

2011-03-16T03:22:22Z

Downtown Chicago

2011-03-09T04:22:22Z

Stained Glass Window

2011-03-02T04:22:22Z

Acu-Rite Weather Station 00992 Manual

2011-02-23T04:22:22Z

The Acu-Rite 00992 Weather Station is one of the best Christmas gifts I ever received. A couple years ago I was admiring my father-in-law's weather station, and he told me how handy it was, especially since they're out in a wide-open area in Central Indiana, where the weather can be unpredictable. When the holidays rolled around I found this weather station --the same model-- under the tree.

The weather station has all the expected features including temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, wind chill, and a barometric pressure sensor that feeds a nifty weather predictor. It also has a calendar, atomic clock, and Moon phase graph. There are two remote sensors: one for temperature and pressure and the other for wind speed and direction. I have the temperature sensor mounted in my backyard, and the wind sensor is on the roof of my house.

We consult this device every day, and it's pretty accurate. We had a blast using it during Chicago's recent blizzard, watching the pressure drop and the wind speeds get ridiculous.

Recently, we were visiting my in-laws and I noticed they didn't have the barometer set. I offered to fix that and asked my father-in-law if he had the manual nearby: he didn't. I looked online for the manual, and nobody-- not even the manufacturer (www.chaneyinstrument.com) has the literature for this weather station online.

Today, that changes. I scanned my manual and I'm posting PDFs here so that when someone searches on "Manual for Acu-Rite 00992 Weather Station" they'll land here and be a hero to their in-laws.

Here is a link to the complete manual.

Here is a link to the Quick Start Guide.

I assume you already know that you'll need Adobe Reader to view these files, but in case you don't have it, follow this link.

If you found this page as a result of a search and I helped you out, you're welcome. :)