Help - What Is This Plant ?

This is growing on the walk up to the house and have no idea what it is.

I clearly didn’t plant it, nor did I ever have a potted plant that could have dropped the seed that this grew from.


What is it? Can anyone identify it?

It grows like a weed, flowers when it is 3 inches tall, flowers in the shade. Wow.

I want to find out what it is do I can plant it all over the place!

My Birthday Celebration, 2011 Version

On the subject of birthdays, Happy Birthday Eli!

It's a yearly tradition for me to give a sense of just how exciting my life is by blogging about my annual endless birthday celebration.

This year's celebration started off with a bang with the Family Vacation to California. Which is really pushing it as a birthday celebration for me given that it took place in May, and had top billing as a birthday celebration for my Pi. (We had 3 surprise birthday parties for him in just that one week, and none for me. But we did mention to "keep in mind" that the trip was for my birthday also.)

Followed by a record breaking number of movies in one year let alone one month, TWO! Thank you "Corporate Perks"!

     

And yesterday, Plays In the Park opening night for Annie. Video.

Stay tuned. The actual day is still 2 weeks away.

Too Many Comments

I just found out you can leave too many comments on a picassa album!

Found out while looking at the album of Aunt Malke and Uncle Sysfrog's recent trip to Italy.

Every shot is amazing, and I was pretty much saying so in all the comments.

Until, as you can see here, at shot 729 (of 879), I exceeded my limit.

Wave At the Bus - In Honor of Father's Day

In honor of Father's Day...

I have often talked about doing my best to embarrass the kidrentals, to make up for some of what they put us through when they were younger. And not so younger.

For example: “FIRE THAT MAN!” , “I wanted to walk to school”, and “I like your hat!”

and from the neighbors: “I would never let my kids do that”

and from school administrators: “I’ve been in education for 90 years and I never had a student < fill in the blank > before.”

But hats off to this guy, who has taken embarrassing his kid to a whole new level by dressing up in a different and always funny and frequently brilliant costume every morning of the school year to wave to his kid on the school bus.

And then posting the pictures of doing so on a blog. With added commentary, such as

"Parrots are the preferred pirate companion (see Day 134). Monkeys are an acceptable substitute, unless they fling their feces at people. Then they are an awesome substitute."

Check it out at http://waveatthebus.blogspot.com/

Baby Robin

Friday or Shabbos May 20th or 21st I noticed a nest with two robin's eggs in one of our bushes. By the time I tool a picture on Sunday, one egg had hatched. The second egg hatched on Monday.
Tuesday
Friday

At one week, one baby robin died.

I stopped taking pictures because I thought the mother had abandoned the nest. But the second baby robin hung in there.

June 5th, 2 weeks
June 7th
On June 8th, the baby left the nest.

No picture of that, sorry. Shavuoth.

Ridiculous Sidewalk Sign

This plaque was in the middle of the sidewalk on a regular street.

In LA.

Smells Like a Campfire

Leaving the office I smelled a campfire. Could someone have lit one in the parking lot?




Guess it was wishful thinking.

Alien Abduction?

A Canada Goose on Vacation

The Pesach Havdalah Candle Mathematical Problem

This candle has been used for Pesach Havdalah since 1996. Given that it is not used every year, for how many more years do you estimate that it will it last?

How Many Ways Can You Say "Bad Weather"?

Parve Kosher for Pesach Chocolate Taste Test

Somehow we ended up with this variety of parve pesachdik chocolates.


So we decided it was a perfect opportunity to do a taste test.

It was a tough job but someone had to do it.

The opinions of the two taste testers was remarkably similar.

No time to go into detail (snap, texture, but the winner by a landslide was the Alprose Swiss Baking Chocolate. No way are we going to waste this in baking.

Patchzkez
Sweet almost milk chocolate taste. Fruity notes. Second best of the selections.

Oneg
Also a bit sweet, milk chocolate taste. Good chocolate saturation.

Lieber
The only poor chocolate of those we tested. Very sweet but almost no chocolate flavor. To be fair, this might have been one of the two left over from last year.

Haddar
Very dark, not sweet, chocolate. We detected burnt, coffee overtones.