I’ve been using Julia Child’s recipe for pie dough for a couple of years now, but I have yet to get it just right. The end results are fabulous, but up to now it has been a struggle to roll out a disk that would hold together as I lay it into the dish. While people complimented me on my pies, they didn’t know that at the bottom was a stitched-together FrankenCrust.

I took bold moves today. I used the stand-up mixer for only the second time in my pie-making career. I mixed the dough a lot longer, incorporated the butter slowly and the shortening quickly, and added a lot more ice water than usual. The dough was much more batter-y than biscuit-y. I had my doubts, but after a few hours in the fridge it rolled out well (though soft) and held together as I folded it into the dish. The top covered perfectly and is puffing nicely in the oven.

I worry that it might be too soft — maybe soggy. But if so, I already know what I’ll do next time to correct it. Which got me to thinking grandpa-like thoughts. Pie-making is something I have been trying to master for 40 years. While I know I’ll never completely master it, I will be able to pass the technique on to my grandkids.

I smiled as I thought I heard a little voice say, “let’s ask Grandpa Steve to bake a pie!”

Then I thought: Is that what they’re going to call me?

Back about 1,800 inbox messages ago, I started to fret. The scrolling screens of red unread messages were my hamster wheel. A thousand inbox messages later, I felt symptoms of drowning each time I dove into the inbox, snagged a few important things and dreaded what I was missing. My real life is crazy busy enough without digital waterboarding.

Just as I was hitting rock bottom last week, a promising link appeared in my GTD Times feed. I am a disciple of GTD — Getting Things Done –but like the Disciple Peter in the Garden of Gethsemene, I’ve been dozing. The link promised PDF instructions for putting GTD principles to practice on the Blackberry and Lotus Notes. Best 20 bucks I ever spent.

It was a mind-numbing weekend, but I now have a GTD-spec message archive filing system, a modified Lotus To Do feature to keep my next-action tasks organized and a denser but more helpful Lotus calendar.

The To Do list is bulging and the calendar is daunting. The Blackberry still sucks. But the drowning feeling has been replaced by the bucking-down-the-rapids-in-a-kayak feeling. As David Allen explains in his book Getting Things Done, the drowning feeling comes from unclosed loops, from not knowing what you don’t know and knowing that you left something — probably a lot of things — undone somewhere.

So I made it through this day’s Class IV rapids and I’m feeling a bit cocky about the Class V I hear around the bend. See you on the other side.

BTW, for a Yahoo community discussion about the expression “BLANK walked across my grave,” go here.

A Boston Globe photographer, he pulls a broad range of assignments: from cupcake food shot to Haiti earthquake relief. It’s impressive: he captures exquisite moments, whether firing away on the run or directing a team of designers and assistants.

I knew Essdras when he was a photographer at the Rocky Mountain News and I was an editor there. A native of Panama, he is a force of nature. I see in his profile that he does photo workshops, practices martial arts and created a blend of yoga, martial arts and personal training. All that talent — and so good looking that even a hetero guy like me can’t help but remark about it.

Do yourself a favor and check the photo blog out — he gives a little back story to the photo shoots, plus some technical stuff. I have added him to my blog roll.

My aunt plans to live in a teepee in the badlands on the Colorado-Utah border, so of course the family got together to build it. We didn’t know what we were doing, but we had an instruction book and lots  of opinions. The canvas fit the tangle of poles about as well as a size 8 pair of jeans on a size 12 butt. With my aunt and her sister — my mom — beating drums, cousin Jerry shimmied to the top of the poles to survey the problem. It was sturdy enough to hold him, though it would later collapse.

Teepee project: Too many chiefs; not enough Indians from Steve Krizman on Vimeo.

With a day full of dust and beer behind us, we called it a night. Next day, we resolved to chuck the instruction manual and instead listen to the only Indian in the family, Leona, the partner of my cousin’s daughter.  We’re a diverse family.

There was an essential first step involving the proper arrangement and lashing of the first three poles. Then Leona carefully directed placement of supporting poles. A graceful apex emerged, eagle feathers fluttering. She showed us how to neatly fold the canvas and tie it to the main pole. All hands hoisted it into Leona’s chosen position. The canvass unfurled, Leona showed us how to use the vent flaps.

The teepee looked solid and sturdy. It better be: it’s windier than hell out there. I think my aunt will do fine there in the winter. Jerry sunk the living area into the ground, which should keep inside temperatures within a comfortable range. A small stove will serve for cooking and heating.

The land could be described accurately as desolate or stunning. Desolate if you crave lushness; stunning if you are partial to magnificent sunsets on multi-hued bluffs. The neighbors are armed but friendly if you don’t trespass.

I look forward to visiting — and helping Jerry build his earth ship on a nearby ridge.

Vidal was explaining why we don’t understand the animosity that people in the Mideast have for the U.S., even though our country has propped up dictators there (Sadam Hussein, Shah of Iran, Saudi Arabian princes) and funded warlords and guerrillas, including Osama bin Laden. In the film, when people were asked why we are fighting in Iraq, you got either a reflexive “for freedom” or a lot of stammering with an occasional “for the oil.”

There’s a lot of amnesia going on in the health care reform debate. Sen. Lamar Alexander says it’s just too darn hard to tackle the problems of an industry that accounts for 17 percent of our GDP. The last time Congress gave up when the going got tough, 1992, health care accounted for 13 percent of GDP. If we could cure Congress of amnesia, they might see that giving up only lets the problem get bigger.

And there is much hand-wringing over the nearly $940 billion, 10-year cost of the current proposal. Over the last ten years, health care spending has increased $1.1 trillion. You don’t even need an amnesia cure to know that $940 billion is an improvement over $1.1 trillion.

Opponents of current reform measures call it a government takeover. If they weren’t victims of amnesia, they would see that the current health care system is headed for a government takeover. Government share of health care spending has gone from 44 percent to 47 percent over the last 10 years, on pace to becoming a majority shareholder by the end of the next decade.

Powered by Twitter Tools

Powered by Twitter Tools

Powered by Twitter Tools

Powered by Twitter Tools