This blog has moved

I've migrated this blog to Wordpress; the new version has a new path:
link here. You might subscribe to the new feed there.

I've intended to try WP for a while and was finally motivated by Google's discontinuation of FTP publishing from Blogger.

Is Chicago

Described here, this week's three-day vacation trip to the windy city. Both it was, although temps were only cold (not bitterly cold) and only cursory snow was seen. The impetus for the trip was Beautiful Wife's attendance at the Midwest Clinic; since airline travel and status in a family way have poor compatibility, we opted for a family road trip. Weather and traffic cooperated on Tuesday, and we made it door-to-door in about six hours, the latter door being that of the lovely Palmer House. Junior traveled quite nicely: minimal fussiness in the car (we don't do in-car TV or any of that mess; staring out the window builds character) and at restaurant meals. Then again, you'd travel nicely too, if you had a sharp new Land's End coat to show off.

Tuesday p.m. we hit one of those make-your-own-stirfry places and crashed. Wednesday morning we had breakfast at a Corner Bakery (that's a brand name, alas); here we are awaiting food.
J and I split off for a two-year-old's #1 big city attraction: the train! After the 6-minute red line ride (and 12 minutes of watching trains come and go), we hiked to the Hancock Center for an elevator ride up. (J's first suggestion: "no elevator, walk stairs.")
No line there at 9:00; we checked out the city views and sat coloring on the (ninety-fourth) floor for a bit, then back down and on to some evaluation of Michigan Ave. decorations and a trip to the Lego store. Yup, Lego store. Awesome. Then, snack time (for some, coffee time) in the lobby of the Intercontinental (it was toasty; we discussed the bulb ornaments on their tree). Then, back to hotel for naptime, followed by a trip by the bean and supper at The Berghoff. After bedtime, I wandered a bit, happened across Orchestra Hall, chatted up the loitering ushers and tiptoed in the back for a few final Nutcracker movements.

Thursday morning, continued public transit adventures as we tracked down the 146 for a bus ride to the museum campus. Note: Shedd is great at opening on a weekday. We chatted with some fish trainers on the bus, then I mostly pivoted whilst J scurried from species to species, identifying subtle differences among features. Below, sitting on a bench at the Caribbean tank; watching performing dolphins at one of those run-of-the-mill aquarium shows.

Then we bussed back to the hotel for lunch and naptime, during which I caught the el back uptown for a trot through the Museum of Contemporary Art. I particularly enjoyed a collection of Calder mobiles, some bizarre Carrie Schneider with a lot of extra arms, and a brilliant exhibit entitled "Hide and Seek", in which unlabeled art is installed incognito around the museum spaces. Either this is one of my favorites from that collection, or I've been fooled by a disgruntled signmaker.
After nap, a stop at the Architecture Foundation store, then on to the Art Institute for a quick tour (mostly admiring the space, with a quick focus on The Supper at Emmaus and, being John Hughes fans enough, Seurat's Sunday Afternoon, then on to large bowls of pasta. Friday morning, chow at the Artist's Cafe, an hour or two at the Museum of Science and Industry (note: mid morning on the last day of public school classes before break; zoo) and six hours return flight on the interstate.

Candidate Christmas card photos

Happy December and such from the 3.8 Kolthammers of Ohio. I note that I've now exhausted my supply of sweaters, so I'll need to invest in a new one in 2010 lest risk repeating a previous year's photo outfit.

Pfthanksgiving weekend: the report

Thanksgiving week was a rough one. Monday was off work, one of many such days, thanks to a change in vacation policy that requires us to burn more banked days before year's end. Tuesday and Wed were slow, thanks to everyone else doing the same to comply with said policy. And Thursday, turkey.

Before Turkey, though, a trot. This was the first time I've run the big Turkey Trot downtown. Let's call it 2500 joggers, with street closings, chip timing and charity benefits: the whole works. Another benefit: a free low-res photo! (As I understand it, with some connection to the photographer wanting people to order the real print; I don't know anyone who actually has.) As with all such photos, I look reasonably athletic, but the less-athletic folks in the background give a better perspective to my pace. According to Garmin, 5.00 miles at 8:30/mi. That being that, we did various family turkey-related things, driving from place to place. Friday was turkey day at 2211, complete with stuffing, potatoes mashed, roasted brussels, saucy cranberries and dinner guests. Our bird was brined [*] and roasted, bought fresh (that is, cleaned and refrigerated, just not frozen). Saturday involved some sort of walk to the library, and some sort of car trip to the Home Despot. Par for the course.

Sunday morning was our first running group run in some time. Starting at our place, we ran a lake loop (5.8 @ 9:25), then chowed some brunch. Good times. Then a little stretching, naptime routine and a hop in the VW for the 6-hr drive to Chicagoland. Busy highways on a holiday weekend aren't a boatload of fun, but I'll take them over airport delays. The tollbooths each required a ten-or-so-minute wait, but other than that, and a few interchange slowdowns, the only costs were 350 miles on the odometer, 11 gallons of premium, $20 in tolls and an incredibly dry reading of Heart of Darkness (audio books for road trips: highly recommended; check out twice as many as hours needed, since ~50% are intolerable).


View Larger Map

[*] Ohio was part of the 'Brine Belt', according to this nifty NYT map of recipe search popularity by geography.

Extra hour

With the extra hour of daylight savings, we enjoyed a wild and crazy game of Agricola. Still the house favorite, as far as board games go.

This, using the variant in which each player picks 10 cards and keeps 7 for play, rather than the standard 'draw 7 and eat them'.

Baby names

(Though it's not the names of babies I'm concerned about, so much as their name when they grow up.)

The SSA website has some simple data queries for names. (I'd prefer access to the raw data and wonder if that's also available online.) Julian was born in 2007, and part of our goal was to pick a name that wasn't outlandish, but also wasn't all that popular. We settled on the 65th-most popular name given to boys in that year (in the US). I think we're catching an upward trend: Of course, this is rank (i.e. "200" means the 200th most popular name), so increased popularity is down. I'd prefer to plot "% of total boys given that name", if I could figure out how to extract that.

I'm surprised that there's only a factor of 3 difference between the most popular name (Jacob, in 2007 just over 1% of all boys) and Julian (about 0.3%). Anecdotally, it seems like everyone has a Jacob, Michael or Ethan, and I don't think I've met another J in his generation. Perhaps they're all in a different demographic, together on a distant social island.

For boys, the popularity decay constant over rank is at 52 (that is, the 52nd-most popular name is 1/e (37%) as popular as the 1st), suggesting that (in the first moment, at least) there is more variety in boys' names than girls: for girls, the 30th most popular name is 1/e as popular as 1st. Or, slicing another way, the 65th most popular girls name (Jennifer) was a factor of 5 less popular than number 1. I'm sure the Freakonomics guys have a theory about the difference in distribution, perhaps having to do with sex equality and Ivy League admissions.

Brewzilla 2009

I attended Brewzilla 2009 this weekend, the culmination of Cleveland's Beer Week, which I otherwise celebrated by being especially snobby in any discussions of beer and hacking my wine fridge to store ales vertically.

I'll give the event a 50% approval rating. There were a fair number of tasty choices, and not bad people-watching (particularly after the kegs started to float). And, the setting was a fun idea (at the old Arcade, with tasting stations set up in each storefront). However, there was a lot of useless filler on the beer list, it was too loud (or I'm too old) and there wasn't really enough room to taste and chat. They issued drink tickets, which were applied with the same formality as we used to use drink tickets at undergrad parties.

I did enjoy having access to attempts from the small, local micros (Indigo Imp, Buckeye/BeerEngine). Although I hope to see another one next year (this was the first "annual"), I'll probably spend my money on one of the smaller, brewery-sponsored events like Victory night at The Cave.

Hey look, I appeared in an event photo on Metromix. Used without permission.


I haven't seen anyone post the beer list yet. Let's see if I can scan and OCR the printed one I received at the event for future googlers.

Cleveland Brewzilla 2009 Beer List
Founders: Red's Rye, Dirty Bastard
Brooklyn: Local #1, Local #2
Goose Island: Matilda, Pere Jacques, Sophie
Victory: Prima Pils, Hop DevillPA, Yakima Twilight
Bell's: Amber Ale, Sparkling Ale, Double Cream Stout
Dogfish Head: Raison D'Etre, Red &White, Festina Peche
Troegs: Troegenator Double Bock, HopBack Amber
Hoppin' Frog: Silk Porter, Hopmaster's Abbey Belgian Double IPA
Chimay: Premier Re, Grande Reserve Blue
Stone: Levitation Ale, Arrogant Bastard Ale, Old Guardian Barley Wine Ale, Smoked Porter
Ithaca: Alpha Alpha, Apricot Wheat , Cascazilla
Southern Tier: 422 Pale Wheat Ale, Hop Sun
Magic Hat: #9 , Seasonal
Weyerbacher: Merry Monks Abby Tripel, Old Heathen
Pyramid: Haywire Hefeweizen
Sierra Nevada: Pale Ale, Chico Estate Ale
Miller/Coors: Killians, Blue Moon Belgian White
Samuel Adams: Boston Lager, Octoberfest, Imperial Stout
Bluegrass: American Pale Ale, Queen's Knickers, Bourbon County Stout
Leinenkugel: Sunset Wheat, Hazelnut Brown
Anheuser-Busch: Hoegaarden, Leffe Blonde, Stella Artois
Ommegang: Abbey Ale, Hennepin, Adoration, Biere de Mars
Thirsty Dog: 12 Dogs of Christmas Ale, Siberian Night, Cerebrus, Pumpkin Ale Unfiltered
Fat heads brewery: Sonoma Aroma, Bumble Berr, Oktoberfest, Shock the Monkey
Indigo Imp: Winter Solstice, Gatekeeper, Blonde Bombshell, Jester
The Brewkettle: Red Eye PA, Tripel, Jack Hammer Barleywine, Old 21 IPA
Buckeye: Commemorative Brown Ale, Hippie lPA, Heidi, 76 IPA
GLBC: Dortmunder Gold Lager, Edmund Fitzgerald Porter, Eliot Ness Amber Lager, Commodore Perry IPA, Christmas Ale
Dixie: Blackened Voodoo, Lager
Hook & ladder: Golden Age, Backdraft Brown
Abita: Turbodog, Purple Haze, Amber
Avery: IPA, Hog Heaven
Flying Dog: Snake Dog IPA, Gonzo Imperial Porter
Allagash: Tripel, Black
Harpoon: UFO Hefeweizen, Raspberry Hefeweizen
Anderson Valley: Bamey Flats Oatmeal Stout, Hop Ottin’ IPA
New Holland: Mad Hatter IPA, Dragon's Milk
Napa Smith: Wheat Beer, Amber Ale
Ayinger: Celebrator Double Bock
Lindemans: Framboise
Sam Smith: Oatmeal Stout, Stingo
Carlsberg: (ibid), Grimbergen Blonde
Fuller's: london Porter, london Pride
Erie: Railbender Ale
Southampton: Double White Ale
Rogue: Dead Guy Ale, Hazelnut Brown Nectar
Franziskaner: Hefe-Weisse
Spaten: Oktoberfest, Premium Lager
Left Hand: Jackman's Pale Ale, Polestar Pilsner
Two Brothers: Moaten Aemish Red Ale, Heavy Handed IPA
Clipper City: Heavy Seas loose Cannon, Heavy Seas Winter Storm
Unibroue: Raftman, Ephemere
Jolly Pumpkin: Luciernaga "The Firefty", Bam Biere, la Roja, Maracaibo Especial