Liralen's Adventures Through Life

Sometimes, I think that scientists, early on and at a very early age, get an tremendous education through classic Halloween horror stories on the pitfalls and error of disregarding the opinions or feelings or thoughts of the rest of the human race, especially if they're particularly brilliant. That just because you might think they're stupid or slow or whatever doesn't mean that what they think or feel doesn't matter or that they can't hurt you badly if you treat them badly. Everything from Frankenstein to Dracula to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea all tell the same sort of story. Don't put yourself above or beyond humanity, or the mobs with the pitchforks and torches will be coming for you. Not that we all *get* that lesson, but still... I got it pretty early, and I think my time at Caltech made me VERY aware that I'm not really that smart, and certainly not smart enough to act like some idiots with very high IQs. So I en...

Yesterday I had our monthly Cabinet meeting, and it always takes a lot out of me, but we got through everything on the agenda and got out of the meeting with three minutes to spare. I really am aware of how much people sacrifice to get to these meetings, so I try to make the best use of their time. But it left me pretty flat this morning, but I was up at 6:50 to meet up with Amber, a friend of mine, whom I word war with at 7 am every Thursday morning. She's a lawyer so has to get to work by 9 on that day at least, so we just get the words in before she leaves for work. Right at 9 am, Gina showed up with 10 pounds of white grapes from the vines in her backyard and all the ingredients for jelly. We did two entire batches of grape jelly, five pounds of grapes per, with one package of pectin and a lot of time and a very nice food mill. PickYourOwn.org has a very nice recipe that details the whole process , and the Sure-Jel people have a very solid recipe for the jelly. So solid I...