Corn on the Cob and Roast Beef

I found a recipe for cooking corn on the cob and it called for boiling it in salted water.  Then I found a bunch of comments that said if you boil the sweet corn in salted water, the kernels will be tough.  I continued searching and found instructions from people in "corn country"!  I tried it last night and it was amazing!  You put two tbsp. of sugar and two tbsp. of vinegar in the water (I used cider vinegar; it didn't specify), bring it to a boil, and then add the corn.  Bring the water back to a boil, cover the pan, remove the covered pan from the heat.  The corn will be ready in three to five minutes.  YUM!

My boyfriend found a recipe for cooking a beef roast rare.  I usually use an eye round roast.  In fact, I'm cooking a seven pound eye round now.  Put the roast, fat side up, on a rack in a dry pan (I cover my pan with foil so cleanup is easier).  Shake dry seasonings on the outside (I use Mrs. Dash regular and sometimes a little worcestershire sauce and lemon pepper).   Insert a meat thermometer.  Cook at 200 degrees until the meat thermometer reads 140 or 145 degrees (for rare), then turn up the temperature to 500 degrees for ten minutes.  Take the roast out and let it sit for ten to 15 minutes.  At that time it will be ready to slice.

Reading at B&N

Our own Kimberley Lynne will be reading at the new B&N Fitzgerald Building (at Mt Royal and Oliver) on Wednesday, September 29.  Oh yeah, there will be other fine local writers also reading that evening.  The event is from 7 until 8:30 PM.  I have my personal essay class that night.  We were considering ending early to attend another reading.  I wonder if we might be allowed to attend this one instead? 

Just Saying

Well, I've been giving a lot of thought to the mid-term for my e-publishing class.  It has to be four pages, and it has to be a "writer's" website.  Currently, I only have one piece that has been selected for publication, so my choices for pages is rather limited.  However, since I have decided on the memoir track the writing is much easier; I have generated more material than I did when I was writing in other genres.  That being said, I decided to think about the "Me" that I wanted the public to see.  I believe my pages will be laid out like this:

Page one will have a bio that includes the facts that I am in a writing program at UB (with a hyperlink to excerpts from some of my pieces) and that I enjoy photography (with a hyperlink to a page of some of my photos).  My family will also be included in the first page bio.  I envision a picture of my girls somewhere; I'm just not sure where.  So, there are three of the four pages.  Since I am a high school English teacher by day, I will probably have the fourth page related to teaching creative writing, theatre, and English.

I really need to get into the CS5 Dreamweaver program and start messing around with layout.  That probably won't happen this weekend.  I'll just create something in Word so that I can turn in the rough draft on Monday. 

At the moment, I am sitting in my daughter's dorm room at Salisbury University.  She is a freshman and is coming home for her first weekend visit in a month.  Right now she is in English class and I'm working on her laptop,  We will be heading home in another hour or so.

Graphics and Design of a Website

I'm hoping that Dreamweaver has some templates from which to work since I don't really know how I want my site designed.  I keep coming back to the same idea: I want my opening page interesting enough that a person will want to navigate my site if he or she stumbles upon it.  Since I enjoy photography as well as writing, I envision using photos I've taken.  I'm just not sure how those photos will be used.  To that end, I am now going to try to load some photos onto this new Mac laptop.

Navigation of a Website or How Confusing Do You Want It?

I've been looking at a number of websites, and blogs about websites, and thinking about navigation.  I like simple but entertaining/creative ways to navigate.  Honestly, as annoying as it might be, I enjoyed the Dan Brown website opening page, and the page with the map being drawn (which won't mean anything to those who aren't in my epublishing class).  I want my website to have an interesting and innovative opening page that causes people to want to navigate my site.  I like things that move, things with color, and lots of layers of pages that easily navigate back and forth without using the back button.  However, as I stated before, I won't have much content until I have more of my writing edited, and some things published. Sigh...

CS5

I finally got the access serial numbers to load my new Adobe CS5 software.  It took me a while to figure out how to install software on a Mac (they tell me Macs are intuitive - my brain must be synched to a different rhythm than most).  Anyway, it's loaded.  Now I have to figure out how to use it.  I have to create a website for my midterm, and I figure I'll use Dreamweaver (since I purchased it).  Sigh...  Now, I must consider navigation, content, and design.

My first thought is that my bio will be skimpy (at least as far as things published).  Having looked at many author sites, my next thought is there won't be much to navigate.  I guess I'll have to create a site based on my projected future as a writer.  Okay - enough said.

Judith Warner Website

http://www.judithwarneronline.com/index.htm

Picking an author's website that I don't care for is tough.  I can find pleasing things about most any author site.  Although, when I stumbled upon Judith Warner's site (author of Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety), I didn't find it particularly pleasing.  The welcome page is lifeless with a black and white photo of the author.  The bio page is short and seems incomplete (mostly because of all of the white space). In short, I find the look of the pages to be dull.  However, I will say that the site is easy to maneuver, and that all of the usual things you expect to find like readings, and links to writings, are all there.

Finding Author Websites

http://www.eyeonbooks.com/authorwebsites.php

While this is not an exhaustive list of author websites, it is useful.  I enjoyed perusing websites of authors of whom I had not heard (yeah - don't end a sentence in a preposition).  Anyway, enjoy!

Online Site/Project

http://www.jhfc.duke.edu/jenkins/courses/isis092/syllabus.htm
As a teacher, I would love to create a syllabus as complex as the one at Duke.  I recently purchased a Mac and Adobe CS5.  New to Mac and new to most of the creative suite, I'd like to be able to create an interactive syllabus website for each of my classes.  In short, I'm open to learning most anything in CS5!

Hypertext Edition of The Brain of Katherine Mansfield

http://www.het.brown.edu/people/easther/brain/index.html
This is entertaining.  I was all over the place with this story.  I don't know how many pages there are (I didn't actually get to the end).  I wish the font on the story pages was darker rather than the gray that they are.  Also, I wish the picture at the top of each page had some color (I like color!).

Diagram

"Diagram is an electronic journal of text and art. As our name indicates, we're interested in representations. In naming. In indicating. In schematics. In the labelling and taxonomy of things. In poems that masquerade as stories; in stories that disguise themselves as indices or obituaries."
http://webdelsol.com/DIAGRAM/

Although I really enjoy some of the writing in this online journal, I don't like the looks of it.  The font is small.  The pages are stark and seem utilitarian.  The pictures/diagrams seem like something out of the 1930s.  Perhaps the decisions were stylistic in nature, but I can't imagine reading this journal on a regular basis.

Kim Addonizio

http://www.kimaddonizio.com/Site/_welcome.html

Kim Addonizio is an amazing poet, and a delightful person.  She has as much personality as this picture from her website suggests.  I enjoy her site because it has a simple design that is easy to navigate.  It is also visually pleasing with its dramatic colors (primarily black and red).  Although Lucifer at the Starlight is her most recent book, I wish it wasn't the welcome page for her website. I'd prefer a more generic welcome page with a short bio, a picture, and some literary criticism for her books.