Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, December 13, 2020
through
Saturday, December 12, 2020
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It’s Saturday, December 19, 2020
Welcome to the 972nd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Swedish Meatballs
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2.0 Commentary
More snow on Thursday than all last winter.
A lot of snow.
Many people looked forward to it, especially parents of small children.
What fun!
Be safe, my friends.
The Moderna vaccine racing to approval.
A huge step forward in our fight against the pandemic.
Like opening a second front.
Valentine’s Day, a watershed day, looming closer.
Fourteen days of February.
Thirty-one of January.
Twelve in December.
Fifty-seven days total.
On that day:
Winter ending;
New President beginning;
Vaccinations gaining traction;
Days longer;
Political lunatics centrifugally pulled away from center and forced to the edge of the edge;
The economy taking direction;
A trillion-dollar infrastructure-rebuilding, jobs-creating, $20.00 minimum wage-lifting bill debated in Congress.
Fifty-seven days.
Passing quickly, those days, propelled by the holidays and the Inauguration.
When the inauguration is over, Valentine’s Day will be only 24 days away.
Looming closer.
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3.0 Tuscany, extracting an essence
Did more research on Perseus freeing Andromeda, by Piero di Cosimo.
The painting was praised by critics and art historians for its aesthetic, cosmological and political implications.
This masterpiece of the Florentine Renaissance depicts the myth recounted by Ovid in Book IV of the Metamorphoses.
In a single painting, Piero di Cosimo portrays several scenes from Ovid's tale
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“…when we have suffered a long time,
we have great difficulty in believing in good fortune.”
~Alexandre Dumas
The Count of Monte Cristo
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
Much joy among young parents: first snow.
Enjoyment with children.
Snowman making.
Sledding.
And more.
Blog meister responds: For those of us not so blessed, our enthusiasm is tempered by the discomfort, the slip and fall, the additional closures.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Thursday night we enjoyed meatballs and mushrooms in a red wine/chicken stock sauce enriched with a non-dairy soured cream.
On a bed of pappardelle.
A lot of fun for Kat and me.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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A meatball is ground meat rolled into a small ball, sometimes along with other ingredients, such as breadcrumbs, minced onion, eggs, butter, and seasoning.
Meatballs are cooked by frying, baking, steaming, or braising in sauce.
There are many types of meatballs using different types of meats and spices.
The term is sometimes extended to meatless versions based on vegetables or fish; the latter are commonly known as fishballs.
In Sweden, meatballs are called köttbullar (literally "meat buns") come in a few different types, all typically small, and the international influence is great, perhaps the greatest from Sweden and Spain. They are usually eaten with potatoes or pasta.
Some common additions are various vegetables, ketchup, various spices, etc. are made with ground beef or a mix of ground beef, pork and sometimes veal or venison, sometimes including breadcrumbs soaked in milk, finely chopped (fried) onions, some broth and often including cream.
They are seasoned with white pepper or allspice and salt.
Swedish meatballs are traditionally served with gravy, boiled potatoes, lingonberry jam, and sometimes pickled cucumber.
Traditionally, they are small, around 2–3 centimetres (0.79–1.18 in) in diameter although larger meatballs are often served at restaurants.
In 2018 a Swedish Twitter account claimed that what we know as Swedish meatballs are based on a Turkish recipe and King Charles XII used food as a way to help boost the relationships between the two countries.
However a Stockholm University professor of food and meal science later stated that this was unlikely and that meatballs likely originated in France or Italy instead.
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It’s Friday, December 18, 2020
Welcome to the 971st consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Herman Lamm
Booking shot of Herman Lamm
http://www.outlawhistory.com/Harry%20Pierpont.html, which acquired no IP rights
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2.0 Commentary
Valentine’s Day 2021 as the watershed day marking the moments when:
We take the time and effort to romance our significant other;;
We notice that the days have gotten significantly longer;
Most of the winter has passed, we can survive the remainder;
A sizeable portion of the U.S. population has been vaccinated and
a schedule has been established that will soon enough lead us to a group immunity that will defeat the virus;
The lunatic fringe of the Republican Party will be further marginalized;
The new administration in Washington D.C. will establish its rhythm and style.
Our economy will bottom out and optimism will pervade Wall Street.
To that end, let’s work towards a trillion-dollar investment in America’s infrastructure
that will create millions of legitimate jobs, huge paychecks, and a spur in spending
that will create new jobs in every segment of our economy.
This is not a time for half-measures.
This is not an era of government handouts.
Not the creation of a generation of slouches.
Hard work.
Hard pay.
$20.00 minimum wage on these projects.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“What a fool I was,
not to tear my heart out
on the day when I resolved to avenge myself!”
~ Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
In receipt of the Emperor’s New Clothes’ letter that called last Saturday’s Army-Navy game one of the most boring football games ever.
Blog meister responds: Traditional-rivalry games often leave something to be desired when viewed professionally. But the game is about the buildup, the memories, the company, the irrational support for the home town team.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Wednesday night Kat and I shared a large bone-in rib eye steak.
On sale.
Not very creative but easy and very good.
Afforded me time to prepare tomorrow night’s dinner of Braised meatballs and Mushrooms.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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Herman Karl Lamm (April 19, 1890 – December 16, 1930), known as Baron Lamm,
was a German-American bank robber.
A former Prussian Army soldier who immigrated to the United States, Lamm believed a heist required all the planning of a military operation.
He pioneered the concepts of "casing" a bank and developing escape routes before conducting the robbery.
Using a meticulous planning system called "The Lamm Technique", he conducted dozens of successful bank robberies from the end of World War I.
In 1930, Lamm committed suicide when surrounded by a law-enforcement party in Sidell, Illinois, after a botched heist.
Lamm's techniques were studied and imitated by other bank robbers across the country, including the famous John Dillinger.
Lamm was a member of the Prussian Army, but was forced out of his regiment after he was caught cheating at cards.
After he was discredited, Lamm emigrated to the United States shortly before the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
Lamm became a holdup man, and quickly started adapting his military training, his study of tactics, and his precision and discipline into the art of crime. He theorized that a heist required all the planning of a military operation, which included the development of contingency options in the event of unforeseen problems.
Bank robberies in the United States were largely improvised at the time, resulting in varied degrees of success and failure among heists.
Lamm sought to take the guesswork out of bank robbing.
Lamm was arrested in 1917 after a botched holdup and served a brief stint in a Utah prison, where he developed what became known as "The Lamm Technique", in which he pioneered the concept of "casing" banks.
The system involved carefully studying a target bank for many hours before the robbery, developing a detailed floor plan, noting the location of safes, taking meticulous notes and establishing escape routes.
He would occasionally have a man pose as a journalist to better understand the inner workings of the bank.
Lamm assigned each gang member a specific job, along with a specific zone of the bank they were charged with surveying and a strict timetable to complete their stage of the robbery.
Among the jobs he assigned to his fellow robbers were the lookout, the getaway driver, the lobby man and the vault man.
He also put his men through a series of rehearsals, some of which involved using a full-scale mock-up of the interior of the bank. Lamm stressed the importance of timing during these practice runs, and used stopwatches to ensure the proper results were achieved. He only allowed his gang members to stay in a bank for a specific period of time, regardless of how much money they could steal.
Lamm is also credited with devising the first detailed bank robbery getaway maps, which he called "gits". Once Lamm targeted a bank, he mapped the nearby back roads, which he called "cat roads", to a tenth of a mile.
He meticulously developed getaway plans for each of his robberies. Before every heist, Lamm obtained a nondescript car with a high-powered engine, and often recruited drivers who had been involved in auto racing. Lamm pasted a chart on the dashboard for the driver, which included block-by-block markings of escape routes, alternative turns and speedometer readings. Before each run, Lamm and the getaway driver clocked each route to the second under various weather conditions.
Practice runs on the escape routes and alternative routes would take days to master.
Using this system, Lamm and his gang conducted dozens of successful bank robberies from the end of World War I to 1930, taking more than $1 million in total.
They were considered the most efficient gang of bank robbers of the era.
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It’s Thursday, December 17, 2020
Welcome to the 970th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Haditha Dam
NASA/Kjell Lindgren - https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/24258470755/
Lake Qadisiyah, as seen from the ISS "Colors patiently swirl in a reservoir in Iraq. The #StoryOfWater." - Kjell Lindgren
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2.0 Commentary
Weather approaching.
Boston seems to ease out of a lot of bad storms,
storms that seriously impact the areas they move across,
kind of spending themselves in advance of arriving here.
Count our blessings.
Wasn’t that long ago when Bostonians could open the sports pages to find one or another of the home teams vying for one or another titles.
A wonderful amusement.
Overshadowed by the salvation of American democracy from a determined Republican onslaught; and the salvation of our nation’s health by the appearances of effective anti-covid-19 vaccines, sports have lost their charm.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“In a utilitarian age, of all other times,
it is a matter of grave importance that
fairy tales should be respected."
(Frauds on the Fairies, 1853)
~ Charles Dickens, Works of Charles Dickens
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
This from Sally C:
Dear Dom,
Your remarks on James Madison vs. James Momroe in their bid for a Congressional seat reminds me of the gubernatorial race in Virginia while we lived there. The two candidates, one Democrat and one Republican, were both named Mark Warner. The only obvious difference was their middle initials. It led to considerable confusion. You had to be a conscientious follower of the one you supported so you'd know which one to vote for on election day, and very careful in the voting booth to mark the right box.
By the way, my duck stuffing recipe isn't necessarily a Down East concoction - I picked it up 40+ years ago from a book on Native American recipes, substituting pecans for hickory nuts, the first being far more readily available (to say nothing of easier to pick, if cracking them open in the shell - hickory nuts are tough nuts to crack and pick). The indigenous peoples originally used crab apples, the only apple species native to North America. A good stuffing, no matter. I also have a recipe for a spinach and sausage stuffing, which I use when I bone the duck whole and stuff it thusly to restore somewhat its original "duck" shape. (Hmmm ... haven't done that in a while, either ...)
Sally
Blog meister responds: You always seem to have fun in your kitchen, Sally. Bless you.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Tuesday’s dinner was enjoyed with daughter Kat, home for the next six weeks until school in Swarthmore reopens.
She’ll return then for her last semester before graduation.
We enjoyed a simple roast chicken with a plethora of vegetables and a lot of conversation.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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The Haditha Dam is an earth-filled dam in Iraq, holding back the waters of the Euphrates to create Lake Qadisiyah.
The area around Haditha is very arid, with a hot desert climate; the annual precipitation is about 127 millimetres (5 in), mainly occurring during the winter.
This photograph, taken from the International Space Station in November 2015, shows the reservoir at a low water level, surrounded by an expanse of dry lakebed; the Haditha Dam is visible near the top of the image.
Lake Qadisiyah has a maximum water-storage capacity of 8.3 cubic kilometres (2.0 cu mi) and a maximum surface area of 500 square kilometres (190 sq mi).
The associated hydroelectric power station is capable of generating 660 megawatts of electricity, and outlets at the foot of the dam can discharge 3,000 cubic metres (110,000 cu ft) of water per second for irrigation.
During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, United States Army Rangers seized the Haditha Dam on 1 April to prevent it from being destroyed. Destruction of the dam would have significantly affected the functioning of the country's electrical grid and could cause major flooding downstream from the dam. Afterwards, various U.S. Marine units had been stationed at the dam, as well as a small detachment from Azerbaijan.
In 2004, the Gulf Region Division of the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) carried out restoration works on one of the turbines to restore the dam's hydroelectric power station to full capacity. According to the Coalition Provisional Authority, the inauguration of this turbine on 3 June 2004 signified the first time since 1990 that the power station operated at full capacity.
In the same year, a new power line was established between Haditha and Baghdad with the help of the USACE to restore a line that had previously been destroyed.
This new line, stretching over a distance of 223 kilometres (139 mi) with 504 towers, has a capacity of 400 kV and allows 350 MW from the Haditha Dam to be added to the national electrical grid.
The cost of the line was US$56.7 million and was paid by Iraq's oil revenues.
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It’s Wednesday, December 16, 2020
Welcome to the 969th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
John Le Carré
Krimidoedel - Own work
John le Carré at the "Zeit Forum Kultur" in Hamburg on November 10th 2008.
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2.0 Commentary
Spent time putting stuff together for my work on a Sacco and Vanzetti memorial.
My impression is that there has never been so much effort put into the creation of a memorial and so little to show for it.
So far I have not hit any roadblocks but much work remains to be done.
Monday’s electoral college vote was tense.
Voters looked on for hours as state after state voted as their constituents had instructed them.
Donald Trump’s past series of losing lawsuits and pressures lent credence to the feeling that his minions were planning a coup d’etat.
In the event, it was healthily boring and Biden was elected President, to be sworn in January 20, 2021.
Monday was historic for another reason: the first vaccinations against covid-19 were given.
Only a pittance against what we’ll need — but a first baby step.
In a few weeks, the program will be ramped up and the vaccination rhythm will be established.
Tens of thousands people daily will get the vaccine.
Good for us.
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3.1 Sacco and Vanzetti Memorial
Gutzon Borglum, sculptor most famous for his Mt. Rushmore Presidents, in 1930, completed a sculpture in honor of Sacco and Vanzetti.
It is this sculpture that our group is hoping to use to cast a bronze version for installation somewhere in Boston.
Today we framed a question for the city of Boston to answer.
And we need the answer to progress on our quest.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“You are very amiable, no doubt,
but you would be charming if you would only depart.”
~Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
The death of John le Carre conjured memories for my children related to the books we read together; stories we told.
Blog meister responds: It’s a great honor to a parent for her children to recognize the impact she had on their lives.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
For their Christmas present, I took my son Dom and his wife Amanda to Abe and Louie’s for dinner.
We shared a wedge salad, blue cheese dressing, and some clams casino; a single lobster savannah; and a double-thick porterhouse steak.
Both the food and the service were excellent.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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David John Moore Cornwell (19 October 1931 – 12 December 2020), better known by his pen name John le Carré was a British author of espionage novels.
During the 1950s and 1960s, he worked for both the Security Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), became an international best-seller and remains one of his best-known works.
Following the success of this novel, he left MI6 to become a full-time author. His books include The Looking Glass War (1965), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974), Smiley's People (1979), The Little Drummer Girl (1983), The Night Manager (1993), The Tailor of Panama (1996), The Constant Gardener (2001), A Most Wanted Man (2008), and Our Kind of Traitor (2010), all of which have been adapted for film or television.
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It’s Tuesday, December 15, 2020
Welcome to the 968th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
James Madison
Charles Wilson Peale - https://collections.gilcrease.org/object/01261006
Painting of James Madison by Charles Wilson Peale, done in 1792. The painting is located at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is oil on canvas. This is NOT the 2002 painting by Bradley Stevens.
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2.0 Commentary
Unsalvageable.
Some houses are so run down it is cheaper to knock them down, dig a new foundation, install modern wiring and plumbing, and build something new.
In the case of American politics, that time has come.
The house to be knocked down?
The party that Lincoln built: the Republican.
This conservative party, now usurped by the lunatic right, reached its high-water mark in 2016 with Trump’s election.
In 2020 came its first recession, a stunning 7,000,000-vote loss to Joe Biden.
In 2022, expect further shrinkage.
By 2024, the diminished Republican Party controlled by Trump and his looney-toons will be irretrievable.
The concept of a new party will emerge.
Fresh faces will show themselves.
Fresh ideas espoused.
The new house a-building.
The new party ascribing to classic conservative ideals.
Subscribed to by a new generation of party founders, unafraid to face down insanity.
Built to survive storms and climate change.
Eventually, the Trumpian-Republican Party will be marginalized.
Its flailing more and more ineffective.
More pathetic.
The new conservative party will become the significant opposition to the Democrats.
And America will return to a two-party system, center-right, center-left.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“Often we pass beside happiness without seeing it,
without looking at it, or
even if we have seen and looked at it,
without recognizing it.”
~Alexandre Dumas,
The Count of Monte Cristo
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
Lots of expressions of joy.
Optimism.
Some lingering on the missteps of delivery; the time needed to get up to speed.
Blog meister responds: I can only think that we do indeed see a light at the end of the tunnel.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Sunday night I enjoyed a tub of Soupe de Poissons that I had in the freezer.
I buttressed the meal by adding a piece of roasted salmon I had leftover from several days ago.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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The first election for Virginia's 5th congressional district took place on February 2, 1789, for a two-year term to commence March 4 of that year. In a race that turned on the candidates' positions on the need for amendments (the Bill of Rights) to the recently ratified U.S. Constitution, James Madison defeated James Monroe for a place in the House of Representatives of the First Congress.
It is the only congressional election in U.S. history in which two future presidents opposed each other.
The race came about when former governor Patrick Henry and other Anti-Federalists in the Virginia General Assembly, who had opposed the state's ratification of the Constitution, sought to defeat Madison, who had been a strong advocate of ratification, and who wanted to become a member of the new House of Representatives; they had already defeated him in the legislative election to choose Virginia's first U.S. senators.
They put forward Monroe, a young but experienced politician who was a war hero wounded at the 1776 Battle of Trenton, as a candidate for the seat.
Monroe did not seek the contest, but once drafted campaigned vigorously.
Despite bitterly cold weather, the two candidates debated outdoors; traveling after one such meeting, Madison suffered frostbite on his face.
Although Madison had earlier stated that amendments to the Constitution were not necessary, during the campaign he took the position that they were, but should be proposed by Congress, rather than by an Article V Convention that Anti-Federalists such as Monroe and Henry supported.
Madison won the election comfortably, to the applause of his supporters such as President-elect George Washington.
The race did not affect Madison's friendship with Monroe, who was elected to the Senate in 1790, and who would serve as Madison's Secretary of State and succeed him as president in 1817.
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It’s Monday, December 14, 2020
Welcome to the 967th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Subliming dry ice pellets
Richard Wheeler (Zephyris) at en.wikipedia -
Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons.
Small pellets of dry ice sublimating in air.
The pellets are approx 0.5 - 1.0cm in diameter.
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2.0 Commentary
So happy to be talking about the dangers of dry ice.
Immersed in problems of delivery.
Of ramping up production.
Of rival vaccines rushing to approvals.
Happy to be looking towards Feb. 14, 2021: Valentine’s Day.
Then the winter behind us.
Okay, mostly behind us.
But the season well-enough advanced to bring optimism into our lives.
Along with longer days.
And industrial production of vaccines and accoutrements ramped up to accommodate the billions of human beings wanting some protection against the disease.
Most importantly, a definitive date on our personal calendars that we may circle as our own vaccination time.
So before Feb 14 we have two hurdles.
One, the holiday season.
Must be reinvented, immediately.
It’s upon us.
For myself, I am anticipating a total of six family members meeting for dinner.
Not perfect, but not bad for the three-week stretch.
The second hurdle, the six weeks of January and February leading to the 14th.
With the end in sight, being very, very careful.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
“Life is a storm, my young friend.
You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next.
What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes.
You must look into that storm and shout as you did in Rome.
‘Do your worst, for I will do mine!’
Then the fates will know you as we know you”
~Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
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5.0 Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
or text to 617.852.7192
This from Sally C:
Dear Dom,
Mmmmm! Roast duck! I haven't done one of those for a dog's age!
I have a nice stuffing for duck that you might like to try sometime.
About equal quantities of:
apples, diced but not peeled
garlic, whole peeled cloves
onions, diced
pecans, shelled and halved (lightly toasted if desired)
grapes, any color (I'm partial to black) (cut in half if large)
mushrooms (sauteed in butter beforehand if desired)
seasoned to taste with:
basil
tarragon
celery seed
coriander
dill weed
Optional:
toss all in a bit of olive oil before stuffing into bird
I go gaga over the garlic in this recipe ...
Sally
Blog meister responds: Totally love Sally’s Down East experiences.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Saturday was a potpourri of feeding.
A half cup of clam chowder.
Fried clams.
Salad.
Ice cream soda.
Ice cream soda, another one.
1/2 piece eggplant parmigiana.
an orange.
Nobody should eat like that.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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Dry ice is the solid form of carbon dioxide.
It is used primarily as a cooling agent,
but is also used in fog machines at theatres for dramatic effects.
Its advantages include lower temperature than that of water ice and not leaving any residue (other than incidental frost from moisture in the atmosphere).
It is useful for preserving frozen foods where mechanical cooling is unavailable.
Dry ice sublimates at 194.7 K or −78.5 °C (−109.3 °F) at Earth atmospheric pressure.
This extreme cold makes the solid dangerous to handle without protection from frostbite injury.
While generally not very toxic, the outgassing from it can cause hypercapnia (abnormally elevated carbon dioxide levels in the blood) due to buildup in confined locations.
Dry ice is easily manufactured.
First, gases with a high concentration of carbon dioxide are produced.
Second, the carbon dioxide-rich gas is pressurized and refrigerated until it liquefies.
Next, the pressure is reduced. When this occurs some liquid carbon dioxide vaporizes, causing a rapid lowering of temperature of the remaining liquid.
As a result, the extreme cold causes the liquid to solidify into a snow-like consistency.
Finally, the snow-like solid carbon dioxide is compressed into small pellets or larger blocks of dry ice.
The most common use of dry ice is to preserve food, using non-cyclic refrigeration.
It is frequently used to package items that must remain cold or frozen, such as ice cream or biological samples, without the use of mechanical cooling. It is used to store COVID-19 vaccines which require storage at ultra-cold temperatures.
Dry ice can be used to flash-freeze food or laboratory biological samples, carbonate beverages, make ice cream, solidify oil spills and stop ice sculptures and ice walls from melting.
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It’s Sunday, December 13, 2020
Welcome to the 966th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Dianne Feinstein
member of the United States Senate.
United States Congress, US Senate Photo/Becky Hammel - http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/official-photo
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2.0 Commentary
I’ve always considered Valentine’s Day to be a winter watershed: the days are now noticeably and appreciatively longer; the end of winter is only weeks away.
This year, (2021) will be even more auspicious: the vaccine will be in full distribution and all of us will know approximately exactly when we will be vaccinated, and so withdrawn from the hat from which the fates pull the new covid-19 cases.
Senator Dianne Feinstein is getting old.
Forgetful, her aides say.
She’s late eighties.
I’m late seventies.
I’m there already, a full decade before she arrived.
I beat her to it.
Oh! What a lucky guy I am!
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
“There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more.
He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.
We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life.”
~ Alexandre Dumas
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
Someone likened my recent tirade against Trump, after these years of standing silent, to a breakout scene in Game of Thrones in which Tyrion Lannister finally stands up for himself.
The link:
Blog Meister responds: It is a great scene, but not to tempt me with watching the series.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
The goat we planned for dinner never arrived.
We made a pesto sauce and ate leftover duck and salmon.
The trials we endure.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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11.0 Thumbnails
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein born June 22, 1933) is an American politician who has served as the senior United States Senator from California since 1992.
A member of the Democratic Party, Feinstein was Mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988.
Born in San Francisco, Feinstein graduated from Stanford University in 1955 with a Bachelor of Arts in history.
In the 1960s, she worked in city government.
She was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1969.
She served as the board's first female president in 1978, during which time the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor Harvey Milk by Dan White drew national attention. Feinstein succeeded Moscone as Mayor of San Francisco and became the first woman to serve in that position.
During her tenure, she led the renovation of the city's cable car system and oversaw the 1984 Democratic National Convention.
After losing a race for governor in 1990, Feinstein won a 1992 special election to the U.S. Senate.
Feinstein was first elected on the same ballot as her peer Barbara Boxer, and the two women became California's first female U.S. Senators.
Feinstein has been re-elected five times since then, and in the 2012 election, she received 7.75 million votes—the most popular votes in any U.S. Senate election in history.
Feinstein was the author of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban which expired in 2004.
She introduced a new assault weapons bill in 2013 which failed to pass.
Feinstein is the first and only woman to have chaired the Senate Rules Committee (2007–2009) and the Select Committee on Intelligence (2009–2015), and is also the only woman to have presided over a U.S. presidential inauguration.
At the age of 87, Feinstein is the oldest sitting U.S. Senator.
Upon the retirement of Barbara Mikulski in January 2017, Feinstein became the longest-tenured female U.S. Senator currently serving.
Should she serve through November 5, 2022, Feinstein will become the longest-serving Californian and longest-serving woman in U.S. Senate history.
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