Delirity

This morning I stopped at Krispy Kreme. Not to buy a doughnut, but to see if I could get a few 3 or 5 gallon food grade buckets for making sauerkraut. Fortunately for me, this first place I stopped provided me with one each of 3 and 5 gallon buckets. The nice fellow who gave me the buckets, Alex, is apparently a sauerkraut fan, so I told him I’d bring him a jar if it turns out well. Of course, this hinges on my sauerkraut turning out well and me learning how to can things. Cross your fingers.
I’m following this recipe. Once the cabbage is shreded and in the buckets, it takes 6 weeks to ferment. That means no sauerkraut until mid-November. That’s a long time to wait before knowing that it turned out well! But I’m looking forward to a wonderful meal of pork, sauerkraut and potato dumplings (also something I’ve never made before) when the weather is cool. If it goes well, maybe I’ll make it again when my mom and grandpa come to visit for christmas!

I’ve never been the kind of person to read multiple books at once (unless it was something for school). I prefer to focus on one book at a time, then move on to the next. But, since I started listening to audiobooks in my car I’ve been amazed that my brain is actually able to deal with me reading one book at home while listening to another in the car. Usually I get plots confused… and it still happens if the books are too similar, but apparently if they’re different enough it isn’t a problem!

Right now I’m listening to The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. It’s about a historian on the hunt for the history and real Dracula (who he believes is alive) while he searches for his thesis advisor who has gone missing, told from the perspective of his daughter who learns of this story and begins the hunt herself. If you have any interest in Dracula and the myths and history surrounding hom, it is a fabulous book. The unabridged audio is 26 hours and I’m about halfway through right now. The book is 600-some pages, but it’s totally worth it… I promise.

My lab is on the cusp of beginning a 3 year study. Part of what we’re doing is giving our subjects (older adults, some of whom have 0 computer experience) computers so that we can monitor their computer use. We obviously need to give them some virus and spyware protection because they’re likely to accidentally click somewhere and get something, however, we want these programs to be able to run in the background and not ask them what they’d like to do with certain files (just quarantine them all) because they’re not going to know what to do with them most likely.

On one hand we’d like to just go with all microsoft type stuff because that way if there’s a problem and a program says it’s time for an update we can tell them that if it says microsoft they can update. On the other hand, there are better programs out there in some cases that might catch some of the microsoft spyware.

Right now we’re thinking we’ll probably go with the Avira AntiVirus (it’s what we use on all the computers at work and we know it doesn’t get in the way much) and I’m checking out different spyware to see if it can be made to run in the background (currently looking at windows defender, next will be spybot and adaware). Any other suggestions for things to check out?

I can’t help but laugh evertime I see this commercial. I miss the happy cow commercials, so I guess this is the kind of thing that has to make me content (well that and mooing at the cows I drive past to get to the gym).

I finally decided to try out audio books in my car during my lovely commute to and from work. Yesterday, on my way to an eye exam I stopped at the local library to peruse their selection. I was kind of surprised to discover it was so large! Apparently listening to audiobooks on a commute is pretty common… I’m excited to be have such a nice selection for free, especially since buying audiobooks is super expensive (and I’ll probably only listen to each once). Anyway, I’m starting with Umberto Eco’s The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. So far, it’s pretty entertaining!

In the past I tried Italian lessons, but Italian lessons didn’t work because I wasn’t awake enough and I needed to be paying attention to the road, but so far (the drive to work this morning) the audio book thing is working. Considering I waste at least 2 hours in the car each day, I should be doing something which is why I usually try to talk on the phone while I’m in the car.