Scott Knudsen

My niece Anya was born on Monday. Here’s her stats: 7 lbs 10 oz, 20.5 inches, and cute. Hi, Anya. Check her out:

This was the highlight of my morning.

I’ve decided to start updating again! There are some new photos posted in the gallery. New pictures are up for ACL fest 2006, a recent hiking trip to Mt. Monadnock, and a pumpkin party I held earlier this weekend. Enjoy.

I set up a new fish bowl yesterday. Those of you who have been to my place know that I already have plenty of aquaria, but in this case I couldn’t help myself. I spotted a really nice piece of glassware in the trash, and while I’m pretty sure that the university does not condone dumpster diving, this was a find that I could not pass up. In my defense, there was no actual ‘diving’ involved. Anyway, after a bit of cleaning, it’s all set up, although there’s no fish in it yet. I put a little food and a starter culture of bacteria from another tank in there, but I want to wait until I’m sure it’s cycled before adding any higher life forms.

I’m thinking about making it a classic goldfish bowl. If so, I’ll name the fish Dorothy (in honor of Elmo’s fish). Unfortunately, both fish and decorations are limited to what will fit through the inner diameter of the neck (a bit over an inch). I’ve already got a nice bubbler in there, and will add some gravel and plants (which will probably need to be placed ship-in-a-bottle- style with a stick). Here’s a picture of it so far, with a beer bottle for size reference.

I performed major surgery on my laptop today. One of the cooling fans in the back went bad, and the machine was overheating. Fortunately, I had an organ donor; Matt’s old, dead laptop had the same fan in the back. Now, the fan is mere millimeters from the exterior of the laptop, so I thought it would be a fairly easy task to replace it. I took off a few pieces, looked at it, and said ‘it looks like I’m going to have to take this thing completely apart to get at this fan’. I didn’t really think this could be, so in a moment of weakness, I did the unthinkable: I looked up the instructions. Unfortunately, the service manual confirmed my suspicions. I had to take the whole thing apart: drives, screen, keyboard, peripherals, motherboard, everything. In fact the fan was literally the last piece that could be removed. In any event, the operation was a success and my laptop is back in good health, much like myself…

I’m just getting over a pretty nasty case of something-or-other. I’m pretty convinced that it was the bird flu. Because if the media has taught me anything, it’s that EVERYBODY should PANIC about the bird flu! Well, OK, so it probably wasn’t the bird flu, but it did really suck. The whole thing came on the heels of, and perhaps partially as a result of a few weeks of bad allergies, so I’m definitely going to be glad to feel back to 100% again.

I just got done making a batch of peanut butter cookies. They are the best cookies I’ve made in a long time, but that’s not saying much since I think I was still living with my mom the last time I baked cookies. The recipe came from a woman who used to live next to my grandparents, named Rose (‘Mrs. Rose’ at the time). I spent a number of summers there in my youth, and am sure I had these particular cookies many times. The cookies are good because they’re made with lard. This is good for my lac- digestive system, but is also fun because there is no pretense of being remotely healthy. You want something good? Add sugar and fat; mmmm mmm.

Grandma dug this recipe out for my brother and me last year, mainly because we could digest them. It had not occurred to me until then, but these cookies are the metric by which I mentally judge all other peanut butter cookies. While others may be good, they are either too sweet, or too crunchy, or too cakey, etc. But these, as Goldilocks would say, are Just Right. Well, that’s all. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. And if you’re reading this Grandma, thanks for the recipe.