In our last home, we had a postage stamp sized back yard.  With a wooden pike fence on one side, a hedge on the other, and a wire mesh fence on the third, as well as a gated driveway, we had the dog contained. Chloe, a border collie/pointer cross, weighing in at 70 pounds could do 3 full circuits of the backyard before you could count to 60.  And so, each morning, each afternoon and each night, she bolted out the back door at mach speed to reign terror on any wooded creature that dared to cross our threshold.  It is all different now.

She Escapes, Again and Again

Here, by the Lake, we are on a level wooded lot with a large front lawn, and a larger back lawn.  There is a barrier, some might call it a fence on north and south sides of the yard.  Such barrier, however, to Chloe is aspirational.  For within five short minutes, she had escaped through a gap large enough to drive a tractor through.  In fact, the purpose of the gap, was likely to bring lawn mower tractors through.  In the first week in residence by the lake, I have gotten to know several of my neighbors.  First they would see the blur of black and white that was Chloe charging.  Then they would hear the long drawn out command: “Chloeeeeee … come baaaaaack!” repeated a few times and increasing volume.  Next, they would see me marching across their private back yards, leash in hand, scowling … What an introduction!  Luckily, Chloe is a very friendly happy dog, and not the menacing type.

A Solution … Or a Start at a solution

And so, after a week of this I moved on to the next phase.  My first thought was to patch the fence.  One square acre of land.  That’s a lot of fence.  And with a dog that runs at light-speed, rapidly patrolling the perimeter, and also a dog who could dig a hole deep enough to sink a tractor in minutes, I was hesitant to try.  If I didn’t succeed, I would hear from my new neighbors.  Moreover, I would be working on their border.  If I put up an “ugly patchwork fence”, I would actually be invading their site-line and marring their property.

With this concern in mind I saw an advertisement for PetSafe(r) Pet Containment System.  For $200 I could bury a radio-transmitting wire around my property.  I could then administer electroshock therapy on my rambunctious dog.  Home Depot had the equipment.  Shortly after buying it, my wife found an advertisement that heralded $200 for a fully installed system, training included. I was ready to return my system to Home Depot, but decided to check the advertisement.  On closer reading, it turned out to be “$200 off” which consisted of a $100 discount on hardware and $100 discount on training.

And so … I went ahead with my plans, laying out 600 feet of yellow wire, connecting it to electricity, and determining the radio-frequency border-width.  I then took my son Itzak around, electronic RF collar in hand.  We approached the border at 10 foot intervals to determine at what point the collar would indicate the “zapping point”.  With 50 flags in place, it was time to take out the dog.  I read the training manual.  I armed myself with the tastiest liver treats …

…. More later ….

It’s day two in the new office.  You have seen the layout in a previous post. What you may not realize it has windows from desk level to the ceiling on three sides; that’s a lot of window and a lot of heat.  We put in new electricity line to handle all the equipment, and put in new baseboard heating on a separate zone.  The view out the window is nothing short of stupendous.

The room sits on the “premier etage” – the first floor above the ground level.  In front of me is a small lake covered with lily pads.  Surrounding the lake are several 100+ year old trees.  There is a graceful oak tree with branches that span out over 100 feet.  And there is a soaring maple tree with a girth the size of a small cypress tree.  All around is a riot of color.  Leaves are turning yellow and red, and orange, mixed with a sea of green.  A small drizzle is rippling the lake. Occasional ducks land on the surface en route to warmer climates as the seasons change.  We hear the gaggle of geese.

The tranquil moment is marred only by the steady hum of my computer fans.  Not sure whether it is my Dell Server or whether it is my switch that has the louder fan.  The shelves in the back of the office are up.  We now have two large white cabinets to store the messy wires that come from running a computer business (old USB cables, network cables, power cables, serial cables, parallel cables, mouse cables, and an assortment of devices whose purpose have drifted out of memory).

Moves are interesting.  In packing up we left a wide pile of devices in the waste bins.  Who needs a “floppy drive”?  Anyone continue to use a ZIP Drive … wore 100 MB of storage?  I had a serial to mouse adapter.  Remember when serial ports were all the rage.  And now there is the universal serial bus (USB).  Bluetooth was supposed to replace that.  But my latest acquisition, a Plantronics wireless headset still uses a USB to power the device.  I finally decided to retire permanently my Dell Pentium III server. With a RAID V SSCI drives of 50GB (once immense) , the whole system only can store 150 GB, not even enough to backup my current server.  And weighing in at 80 pounds, that was one solid hunk of metal. It certainly has freed up space on my computer rack.

It has been a few weeks since the return from our trip to Paris.  We have mostly readjusted.  We will shortly be moving our office from Croton-on-Hudson to the neighboring town of Cortlandt Manor. But there is one area where we feel as great loss; for we miss the perfect breakfast.  In Paris, or rather Boulogne-Billancourt, we had 3 boulangeries (bakeries) within walking distance from our apartment.  Each morning we would make an expedition (two blocks) to the bakery and pick up a fresh baguette (.95 Euros / USD $1.25).  We would also pick up croissant beurre, croissant almonde, pain au chocolat, or brioche.  We would top it with fresh butter, nutella or confitures.  And for the adults, drink it with freshly brewed French Roast coffee. And so, on our return, we sought to reproduce this simple pedestrian breakfast.  The pastries and baguettes were ALWAYS fresh from the oven.  The had delicate crips crusts.  The insides were light and airy, almost delicate.  The bread “snapped” in your fingers and crackled under your teeth.  The croissant were light, flaky and exuded butter.

Well, it hasn’t been easy.  Our local ShopRite (which has everything), sells loaves that are shaped like French bread, but resemble more in texture partially cooked pizza dough.  The bread is soggy to the touch when bought, with a cold clammy texture. When warmed up to get a crispy crust, the bread is hard and tough.  Sharp teeth are required to tear the break.  Rather then melting in your mouth, repeated chewing is required to aid in digestion.

The croissants are even worse.  They “look” like croissant, but the resemblance ends at the external appearance.  The French croissants were layer upon layer of delicious flaky crust, such that you could unpeel the croissant, and eat it layer by layer. The ShopRite croissants were a single undifferentiated mass of dough.  Yes, there were not too dense, and they were buttery, but they had none of the texture and feel of the French version. Once you went beyond to the Almond croissant and the Pain au Chocolate, it got worse.

I then moved on to the local “Gourmet” establishment.  They had a wider selection and variety.  The French breads (when they were available) had a gold crust and crackled when you squeezed them. But the weight of the bread was wrong.  They were too heavy.  The dough was dense and chewy.  They were interested breads, but they lacked the Artisanal flavor and texture we could get in any boulangerie in France.

Part of the reason, I am told, has to do with CULTURE.  In France, the local bakery has two production runs: early morning and mid-day.  The breads are made without any preservatives.  The means that the lucious baguette of the morning is the stale loaf of the evening, fit only for bread crumbs and croutons. And bakeries are located on every other block.  Each morning and each evening the “chefs”, including little chefs, cue up to get the fresh breads out of the oven.  In the U.S. we have “factory-sized” bakeries that ship breads through distribution centers to large markets.  Breads may take 24-48 hours from when they are made to when they show up on your shelve for you to buy on your weekly (not daily) shopping expedition.  In such a food cycle, French bread, with its 12 hour life cycle, would be long dead and stale before it got to your table.

For us, “lost in suburbia”, our option is to take the train to Zaros at Grand Central Station or learn how to make our own bread.  At present, we are decided on the later.  We will begin to yeast our our starter loaf, and put it in the convection oven while the rest of the family does their morning showers.