Infrequently Noted

Archiving this for my own reference. I wish I'd found this about a year ago. I've since learned the need to give good (and frequent) status information to the PHB, but this has some excellent tips for actually managing to do it well.

No more updates for a while, most likely. I'm moving, trying to avoid getting sued by a multinational corporation, and flying to see a sick relative this weekend. All of that leaves me with scant time to blog. Sorry!

I'll keep my hanging chads, thank you very much.

Back from yet another long weekend, and the patch load just doesn't seem to be going down any.

Here's to enviable problems.

Monroe St. in Madison (South of Regent) continues to put a smile on my face every week or so.

When I first moved here, I was just out of school with very little money and even fewer kitchen tools. I think I had one knife that you could actually use to cut something harder than butter (not including the Swiss Army Knife, of course).

Having found an over-large but under-loved appartment on the North side of the Isthmus a week earlier, I decided that what I really needed was a potato peeler. I don't remember why, but I recall wanting a good one. These are the kinds of decisions you fret about when you've been using your parents hand-me-down flatware for 2 years and your first "real" paycheck is on the way. Anyway, someone at work (Josh?) told me one evening that there was a shop that carried really nice stuff somewhere down by the University and that if I liked to cook at all, I should really check it out. Some scribbled directions and a small prayer that they were still open later, I was off. Without too much trouble, I found Orange Tree Imports and a really nifty little block or two that keeps reminding me that this town isn't a backwater.

More recently I've discovered that Monroe St. is home to my favorite tennis store and a really neat little deli that makes a mean corned beef sandwich. Tomorrow I'm going to take a painting that my sister made to be framed at a little shop a couple of doors down from the deli. I didn't even know it was there until I walked by it today. Then there's the wine shop and the coffee shop. They're all little places; moderately traveled in a very Madison-ish neighborhood but togeather they give you some vague feeling of what living in a real neighborhood (not the manufactured 'burb or New Urbanist kind) must be like. Until then, I guess I'll just visit for lunch once or twice a week and take my raquets in to be strung by a small guy with a thick Sweedish accent.

And if you're ever looking for a peeler, Zyliss makes one so good that you'll forget you're doing prep work. Incidentially, I know this little place where you can get one...