I admit I’m not up on the state of the art in zombie movies. Most of my knowledge was acquired from cheesy horror comics in my youth. Of course, everything we know about zombies comes from media depictions: written stories, TV, and movies. So the question of zombie odor doesn’t really apply to audiences. “Smellivision” was never a popular concept.

So, what do zombies smell like?

I’d expect an odor that the CSI types call decomp short for “decomposing (i.e. rotting) human bodies.”

This would make it amazingly difficult for zombies to sneak up on anyone, or stay hidden to prepare an ambush.

Though, perhaps, if there are lots of inactive zombies about (the dead undead) then it’s hard to distinguish their decomp smell from that of active zombies (the living dead).

Boy, what a stupid topic to write about.

1. Automation is stupid. Until we get Do What I Mean brain interface debugged, cameras will make a best guess.
2. This is what I like about photography: the opportunity to exert control over how the image gets captured.

Although I learned a bit about photography years ago, I still blunder with camera settings. I didn’t mind the shutter speed while snapping pics of dancing. I find I have to literally exercise a special bit of my brain to look at the lighting of a scene. Otherwise I fail to assess backlighting or realize that the shadow will make a huge black slash through the image.

I find that I rely heavily on Photoshop-like software to redeem over- and under-exposed photos. It’s usually good for 1 or 2 stops on a digital camera, though the colors may suffer. Unfortunately there’s no related technology to un-blur a moving subject.

We had a salad like this at the St. Paul Hotel many years ago, and Lesley created her own version at home. She has substituted fat free Rasberry dressing nicely.

• 1 package fresh spinach – washed, stemmed
• 1 quart strawberries,  stemmed, washed and halved
• 1 wedge brie cheese (approx 4 inch wide)  ? 8 oz. cut into 3/4 inch pieces

Raspberry vinaigrette:

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 cup rasberry vinegar
• 1 T dijon mustard
• 1 clove garlic,  minced
• black pepper to taste
• 1 T. poppyseeds
• 2 T. raspberry jam

Whisk ingredients of vinaigrette together.

Mix the salad ingredients and toss with the dressing.

Mix ingredients for salad toss with dressing.

This work by Lesley Atwood is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

This originated with our friend Joanne Luciano. We’ve modified it a bit over the years and it’s now one of Lesley’s signature dishes.

• 1 frying chicken cut up (1.5 lbs.) boiled, skinned, and meat off bone and shredded(hacked)

Marinade:

• • 4 T soy sauce(at least)
  • 1 tsp minced ginger
  • 1 T minced garlic
  • 2 T crunchy peanut butter (or more)
  • 1 T Hot red pepper oil (or Chili paste with garlic)
  • 2 T vinegar(at least)
  • 1/2 tsp bl pepper
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 T sesame oil (chinese dark sesame oil)

• 1 large bunch scallions cut 2″ pieces, then shredded to match the chicken

Mix marinade and adjust the taste – it will taste hotter (spicier) than it tastes when mixed with the chicken.

Arrange the scallions on plate, arrange the chicken atop the scallions, and pour sauce over the chicken.

Note:  Sliced cucumber is also good with this. I have made this a holiday pot luck dish by putting the scallions in a tree or wreath shape and  decorating with pieces of red bell pepper etc.

Click this link if you are looking for photos of Marisha Chamberlain’s first publication party for The Rose Variations which we hosted back in February.

I’ve migrated everything else to a “photo gallery” site. Our site uses an open source web server called Gallery2, that stores and organizes our photos. Before this, I relied on the web page-building feature of Apple’s Aperture program. Now I’ve found an Aperture add-on that loads photos directly from Aperture to our Gallery2 web site.

Anyway, here are the galleries we constructed earlier using Aperture.

San Francisco Trip

Medical staff at Regina went to San Francisco for a training conference. Some family members went along, too.

• Cityscapes
• City details
• Regina people
  

Fall 2008

• Al Franken at neighborhhod parties
• Emily & Patrick’s Wedding Reception
• Fall visit to Massachusetts – birthdays for Hannah, Anna; wedding cake
• Joe Balsanek – photos for our 2nd Ward City Council candidate
• 7th Street Block Party
• Out West – photos from moving out west and back, ’02-’03

Summer 2008

• August Trip to New England
• Starting Med School
• Sights in Andover, MA, for Sam
• Picnic with the TTs
• Early Summer Events
• July Photos
• Mississippi Trip

Graduation Parties

• Max Bussiere
• Ted Collins
• David Reilly
• Jonathan West

Postings with Photos

• Wasilla, AK – with photo of Biscuit’s salmon
• Dud Area – a sighting southwest of Wasilla, AK

Old Things

• A Decade of Maypole Dancing

Fine Print regarding Photos

I leave photos on line until I start to run out of space, at which point I take things down. The Maypole photos are a tradition so I expect they’ll stay up indefinitely.

If you appear in any photos and wish to have your photos removed, just send me an e-mail with the URL of the photo(s) you want removed.

Copyright © 2008, Rick Smith

I have retained copyright on all of these photos, as marked on the photo pages, in hopes that I can exercise some control over their use and prevent misuse. Copyright markings may be one of the following:

• All Rights Reserved
• Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Look on the bottom of the page containing the photo to see which license applies.

Photos of friends and family are marked “All Rights Reserved.” Such photos are posted here as a courtesy to friends and family who may appear in them. If you, your family, or friends appear in one of my photos, feel free to use those photos for personal and family purposes.

Other photos are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. Under this license you are permitted to reuse my photos as long as I am attributed as the creator.

Portions of this work are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

As for exercise, I find the most effective are swimming and downhill skiing: in both cases I put myself in a risky situation (drowning, falling down a steep hill) and I must exercise my way out of it!

As Larry pointed out, we got back in touch when I e-mailed him a couple years ago.

I’ve reconnected with a variety of people over the Internet. Google is much more effective for finding people than even high school reunions. Larry popped up, e-mail address and all, when I used Google to search for him.

Some people aren’t as easy to track down. Former neighbors have left some tracks on Google, hints at home addresses, but no e-mail addresses.

I’ve been on the Net so long I’m not sure who the first person was I tracked down that way. “John Lowry” who has worked with me on DARPA computer security contracts, is not the same one who sat in front of me in first grade. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that Oregon’s premier fireplace designer shared classes with me from grade school through high school (pardon me – the web site says the “premier American fireplace architect”).

Before Google I generally found people by tripping over them. For example, Tim May.

Tim and I spent many a morning together in the cafeteria freshman year of high school. We visited Brentano’s together at Seven Corners (the closest ‘real’ bookstore), perused Edmund Scientific catalogs together, and did some pranks together. And, of course, we visited the Smithsonian. We fell out of touch almost entirely when he switched high schools (except for hanging out in science fairs – yes, it’s the geek stereotype).

Tim achieved early success at Intel as an engineer, retired on his stock options, and went on to coin the term “crypto-anarchism.” We encountered each other on the “Cypherpunk” mailing list in the 1990s with some amusing results (just ask Google).