mashby | The personal blog of Michael Ashby

December 10, 2003

When Recipes Go Wild

Madeleines and Coffee I have fallen in love with the French cookie/cake called a Madeleine. They are small shell shaped cookies, but instead of the hard crunch of a cookie, or biscuit, they are made with light fluffy cake. I understand that you can get them in many flavors, but the only ones I’ve found have a hint of vanilla, or lemon flavor which is barely discernible on your pallet. I came across the DonSueMor Brand one day at Starbucks and they go so well with coffee that I can’t seem to keep from buying them whenever I’m there. At $2.00 for a bag of three, I thought it might be best if I learned how to make them to have around the house. Of course, this wasn’t a conscious thought that lead immediately to action mind you. This was one of those “wouldn’t it be great” thoughts that you tuck away and recall from time-to-time.

It wasn’t until I was watching the DVD of The Transporter that my little nurturing thought was moved into action. I was watching the movie when Lai bakes some Madeleines for our hero Frank Martin. As the two action stars sat there eating them and discussing their next move, I thought, “Man, wouldn’t that be great to enjoy a Madeline with my coffee?” I could just picture myself sitting at the kitchen table, overlooking the pasture that rests behind our home. Dotting the landscape are grazing cattle, some nursing their young, while I type away on my Alphasmart Dana. Every so often, I pause for a sip of coffee and a nibble of this French cake delicacy and look down at Gracie sleeping at my feet. Even now, this idea makes me close my eyes so I can savor the thought in my mind as if it were suckling a rich piece of chocolate, letting it melt and soothe my body.

December 8, 2003

Missed Opportunities At Calloway Gardens

Opportunity I am a coffee snob. I admit it and I’m not ashamed of it. I like good coffee in just about any form – espresso, french press, drip, cappuccino, etc. Coffee is almost like a drug, once you’ve had the good stuff it’s hard to go back. Starbucks is OK, but there’s other brands that I prefer and I’ll drive miles out of my way for it and pay a handsome fee for it as well. This fact was completely lost on Callaway Gardens when I visited there over the Thanksgiving Holiday.

Call it catering to snobs, but I found a lot of missed opportunities at Callaway. These opportunities were not just flights of fancy, but opportunities that would generate revenue. There was a lot of wasted space in the main area of the Inn. What used to be the bar, was turned into a general common area that had little rhyme or reason. This area could be easily converted into a coffee bar. Starbucks has brought the idea of fancy coffee into the mainstream. Setting up a coffee shop that also served a pastries and bagels would have been very popular. There was a restaurant of course, but if you wanted something quick and easy, you were out of luck.

December 7, 2003

Sprucing Up The Place

Sprucing Up The Place After Friday’s entry regarding Plugins and how to tweak MT, I couldn’t help but do a little tweaking myself. That coupled with the comments from my review at The Weblog Review, I thought of a few things that I could do to kind of spruce up the place. There’s a saying that you’re never truly done with a website. There are always things you find that you can do to tweak it just a little bit more. Well, this weblog is no exception and here’s a rundown of what I did.

Add A Description
The first thing I needed to address was the issue of describing what my weblog is about. The name “mashby.com” doesn’t really tell you much if you don’t know me already, so I added a description to the upper right corner of the main weblog. I’m a big fan of introduction statements on a web page, so I can’t imagine how I missed this one.

December 5, 2003

Walking With The Turkeys

My allergies were out of control yesterday. I must have sneezed a thousand times and my eyes burned all day. By the end of the day I felt like I was beginning to come down with something. I think it was due to all the post nasal drip, but it was hard to tell at the time. Holly wasn’t feeling all that well either and so we went to bed at a decent hour in the hopes that sleep would make us both feel better.

I woke up at 6:30am and took a shower and dressed. I felt more like myself, so I put on some walking clothes. It was still early, so I worked on a web site I’m trying to finish for a little while until it was time to wake up Holly. I meant to wake her up at 7:30am, but I lost track of time, so it was 7:50am before I tip toed into the bedroom to gently wake her.

At first, she woke up and smiled because she was all toasty warm in the bed surrounded by all the cats (the like it when I get out of the bed). Then she saw what I was wearing and that smile quickly disappeared. I wasn’t greeted with the wrath of the day before, but Holly wasn’t happy I was waking her up to go walk either.

Ten minutes later were out the door and walking down the street. We didn’t have as much time as yesterday so we walked up and down just a couple of streets. To help boost the time we did have, we walked at a faster pace. Gracie seemed to appreciate it. We did have one very nice surprise on this walk – we saw a flock of turkeys. There’s a family of turkeys that come around every now and then. I’ve taken some pictures of them, but I’ve never been able to get close. As we walked down our street, we got within 30 yards of them before they ran off. We didn’t even see them until the flurry of feathers alerted us that something was up, but it gave us enough time to make us glad we were up walking at that hour.

It wasn’t raining, but it was definitely misty. Holly pointed that out, but she didn’t complain, or say that she wasn’t going to walk, which was a pleasant surprise. It was also colder than the day before and I was actually the one who did a wee bit of complaining. I’m going to have to put on gloves tomorrow.

As we made the steep climb back up our street, Holly asked if we were going to walk everyday. She reminded me that every workout plan has days where you rest, but I insisted that this could hardly be considered a true workout. We were only walking through the neighborhood and we weren’t even breaking a sweat. She insisted that this was cardio because of the hill and I’d agreed to think about it.

In all honesty, I don’t know what the full workout plan is. My initial goal is just to get in the habit of moving our bodies in the morning. A daily walk should be just that – daily. I’d also like to add an evening walk just after dinner, but we’ll tackle that a little bit later on.

December 5, 2003

Why I Love The MT Community

Love written in Chinese It’s been a little while since I’ve written about MovableType, but if you check the archives you’ll see that I’ve written a fair amount on the subject. What brings this topic up again is that I was talking to a friend about weblogging software and I was reminded of an example that illustrates why MT is such a great weblogging tool – the community.

Ben and Mena G. Trott have created a fantastic product. It’s so well thought out and documented that I would guess that 95% of what you’d like to do on your weblog could be done with MT ‘right out of the box.’ To help you discover all that can be done with MT, there is excellent documentation. Whenever I’m thinking of adding a new feature, or tweaking an existing one, I always turn to the documentation first. Chances are MT already has what I’m looking to add built in.

December 4, 2003

My Love Affair With Paper

paper_love_affair I’m about as techie as they come. I always seem to have a gadget of some sort on me and more often than not, I’ve got more than one. Since starting this weblog, I’ve been carrying around my Dana wherever I go and use it to jot down thoughts and ideas. Yet with all this technology surrounding me, I find that I still have a love affair with paper.

Journals
I use paper less and less these days, but I still pack a National Brand 43-571 stitch bound notebook that serves as my journal. Since college, I’ve used this style of notebook and I’m now in my 6th one. I love the cloth covered cardboard covers which protect the light green ruled and numbered pages underneath. I found these notebooks at the LSU bookstore and it’s the only place that I’ve found them. I think it’s a lab notebook, but all my Google searches turn up Chemistry class overviews requiring the. Every few years I go by the bookstore when I’m in Baton Rouge and stock up. It’s not that the notebooks have the best paper, or anything of that nature, I just like them.

December 4, 2003

Welcome To Mashby’s Booty Camp

Last night, right as Holly and I were just going to bed, Holly made the comment, ‘Michael, I’m fat. You have to help me get back on track.’ I’ve heard this kind of rhetoric time and time again. In my opinion Holly is not fat. She’s not the lean mean pageant queen I met back in 1988, but she is in no way fat to me. I find her ravishingly gorgeous more now than ever. I’m not just saying that because I think she might read this. One because she doesn’t read my weblog and two because it’s true.

What made this conversation a little different was the fact that Holly alluded to the fact that her libido was directly tied to her self image. Every man I know wishes that his wife was frisky more often and I am no exception. When I delved a little deeper on the subject and confirmed what she had said I discovered motivation I had no idea even existed. All of a sudden, the idea of getting healthy had purpose. In fact, losing weight was no longer just about shedding pounds, it was about a sexual revolution! 😉

So I told Holly as we were going to sleep to remember that I loved her because starting the next morning, she was entering my personal boot camp. I fell asleep with a smile on my face knowing what tomorrow would bring.

This morning I let her sleep in till 7:15am, but that was a far cry from her normal 9am (she doesn’t have to be at work until 10am). As her eyes opened and she heard me explain that it was time to get up, Holly turned from the sleeping angel to the cranky bear. Over and over she insisted that it was not time to get up and that I needed to leave her alone. I gently, but firmly persisted until she was out of the bed. Not that being up on two feet changed her attitude one iota.

Still grumbling, Holly eventually made her way downstairs dressed to take a morning walk with me. We took Gracie with us and started an easy, but somewhat brisk pace walking down the street. As we walked Holly made the ultimatum that she was never going to walk if it was raining. It had rained during the night and it was very overcast and windy as we walked, but it wasn’t raining. However, if it was raining she re-iterated that she was not going to be taking a walk. Now I’m not an overbearing person usually, but if Holly truly wanted my help and if this little “boot camp” was going to work, there was only going to be one chef in the kitchen.

“Are you sure you want to give me this ultimatum?” I asked with a smile. “Michael, I am not walking in the rain, period.” was her reply. “Fine, then if it’s raining I’m going to wake you up an hour early so that I can drive you to the gym and put you through a brutal treadmill workout. The choice is yours.” I wasn’t kidding. I was taking on the role of being her coach and as such she had to respect me as one. Holly has to know that if she things she can get out of something by simply smiling, or by putting her little foot down, that it’s not going to work. I’m not being harsh mind you. I’m saying all this with a smile on my face, but there is going to be a program and it’s important that she get on board.

We walked for approximately 45 minutes around the lower portion of the neighborhood. I kept the pace moderate thanks to Gracie and her constant quest to see what was just down the way. As we walked, Holly and I talked about the day and what was coming up for the week. it was really nice. Eventually we made our way up the big hill to our home and I pushed Holly a little bit to keep up the pace and not to rest halfway up the hill. It was a good walk and I plan on doing another one tomorrow morning.

December 3, 2003

Day Two And Three Posted

Peace Out To The P.U.C! It’s taken longer than I thought, but I was finally able to post Day Two and Day Three of the Natchez Trace Bicycle Tour today. Some of the highlights include further tales of roughing it on the Trace, progress on my aching ass and almost getting hit by a truck. Ahhh… good times.

Currently, I’m working on Day Four and the Epilogue, but with my total words count now surpassing 125,000, there should be plenty of content to tide you over until then. Also, don’t forget to visit the companion photo gallery. As ODATT said in his review of this site, “…one thing that Michael is, is thorough.” LOL! I laugh every time I read that. 😀

December 3, 2003

Holly Auditions For Nashville Star

Holly auditioned for the USA Networks television show Nashville Star this past weekend, only she didn’t do it in person. Instead, she submitted a video tape of her music and her life for the producers to review. If chosen for the show, she will have to live in a house here in Nashville with the other 9 contestants during the competition. The winner receives a recording contract from Sony Music Nashville.

This is the second season for Nashville Star and although we don’t think that she’ll be picked, it was a good excercise and helped generate a lot of ideas and focus on Holly’s music career. It’s not that we don’t think that Holly is talented enough, quite the opposite, it’s just that there are so many people auditioning for these coveted 10 slots that the chances of the producers watching her video and choosing her seem quite slim. But whose to say? I’m sure last year’s winner, Buddy Jewell thought the same thing when he auditioned.

December 1, 2003

I’m A Writer?

Writing Perceptions are a weird thing. My perception of myself may be quite different from the way you perceive me. For example, I’ve never really thought of myself as a writer. As a reader of my weblog, you may be scratching your head and thinking that I’m crazy, but it’s true – I’ve never thought of myself as a writer.

In college I kind of minored in English. I took short story and poetry classes, but everything I wrote for those classes were assignments. I was told to write something and I did. Later, when I entered the business world, I ran several marketing departments. Being in marketing, I was expected to generate copy. I wrote annual reports, press releases and tons of flyers and newsletters, but still, all of these were required of my job and I perceived them as just another task in my job. When I started KCPUG and then later InterPUG and NPUG, I wrote my fair share of articles, reviews, and meeting announcements, but once again I perceived these as tasks.