New Auditorium!!

ps--for those of you who are curious about Cornerstone's recent building addition, click here (you'll also get a couple of cute kid pictures). Then come visit on Saturday afternoon for the Harvest Festival/Open House! (Details here.)

goodreads

We took a blogger vacation for about a week because we thought it had a virus--not entirely sure if it's cleared up, but we're giving it a shot.

I wanted to point out a new feature on our blog. If you look on the right hand side, underneath the list of recent posts, you should see some small book cover pictures. These are books I've read recently, most of them young adult books, and if you click on a book, you should be linked to my rating and whatever review I have posted of it.

Hopefully this will be a way for you readers to keep up with my reading if you're curious--and I've really been enjoying using goodreads as a way to organize books I've read, am reading, and want to read. I love being able to see the covers!

predicting the future

One definition of stupid is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. Normally the way we predict what is going to happen in the future is by looking at the past. And it works pretty well. If I had to guess, the American League will win the All-Star game next year too, just like they have won the last dozen or so in a row. Were I into gambling and someone gave me that bet straight up, I would take it despite being a National League guy. But the thing is streaks eventually end. I remember a long time ago hearing about how the United States had won the "America's Cup" yahting race for alike a 100+ years in a row. And then some guys in New Zealand built some crazy boat that Dennis Conner still thinks was illegal and they win. I just looked it up and the US has not won the last four times.

I have been thinking about this as I have been listening to statistics like "inflation has averaged such and such over the last 20 years" or "The Stock Market has averaged such and such over the last 70 years." On the one hand, past track records are about the best thing we have to go on for predicting the future, but on the other streaks end. I like to think of someone in Augustine's day saying "The Roman Empire will not fall apart. People have been saying that it will happen for centuries and it never does." But of course it did. Or like assuming that the world will always go on like it has been going on for thousands of years. The reality is that there are unique events (the beginning of the universe for example). Empires rise and fall. We need to have the humility remember that all of our preditions are only predictions, not guarantees, and that the only solid guarantee is that eventually the streak will end.

too many stars

I have lots of theories. One of my theories about movies is that too many big name stars in the same movie is often a recipe for a disappointing movie. Big stars don't normally like bit parts and so you end up with movies where they try to gives serious time to 6-12 characters and you end up not really very connected with any of the characters. It is the same problem we still have when we put our olympic basketball teams together. Guys normally become big stars because they are good at scoring, but there is only one basketball to go around. The team needs to play (and even start) some guys who are really ok with not scoring a lot of points but who can play defense, rebound, and knock down an open shot if the person gaurding him tries to double team Lebron James. Three cheers for role players.

updates

Well, we've been away from the blog for a while. We've been clearing brush and pulling invasive plants out of our new backyard, organizing our new house, etc. etc. I've also been reading a lot of YA books (posting reviews on goodreads.com under username atuckness--I'd love to be your friend there!) and reading a few cooking blogs and trying out their recipes. I'll post some links to them in the next little while.

Here's a few pictures of things I've been making. I can't figure out how to get blogger to insert the pictures after the text, so sorry this is kind of out of order. Feel free to ask for specific instructions for any recipe you're curious about!

At the top is a photo of my efforts to preserve summer tomato loveliness. I used a friend's dehydrator and followed a recipe from the web; I was inspired by Animal Vegetable Miracle to try this. I used cute little plum tomatoes; it took forever to seed them (which I did so they'd dry faster)--if I do it next year I won't seed them. I froze them; later I'll throw them in olive oil and herbs and they should be just like the ones you buy in jars.

Next is a photo of a dinner that looks better than it tasted. I tried a seasoning mix for the rice and it was too salty; the fish was tough for some reason as well. The salad was great, and the sauce on the fish was okay.

We do enjoy a little bacon sometimes, as the next photo shows. I buy a package, split it into 4 bags, and freeze it so we just eat a little at a time. It adds nice flavor to bean recipes and is of course great with fried eggs and fried potatoes. A word to the wise--yukon golds make better fried potatoes than russets!

And last is a blueberry brie quesadilla from August--the original recipe was much more complicated, but it's delicious just as is--blueberries, brie, and a flour tortilla toasted on the stove.

Happy fall!