Home Wong Nga and Black Cty: November 2011

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Hughes Talks About 2012

Joe Girardi says he fully expects the 25-year-old to be in the Yankees’ rotation next season, but Hughes told the Daily News Wednesday that he knows he must deliver to keep his job. Part of that is coming into camp fitter than ever.

“I’m at a point where the patience is running out,” Hughes said during a telephone interview. “I’m not a prospect anymore and I’m not 21 years old anymore. You’re gauged on what kind of year you had, not what you’re capable of doing.”

...

“I’m certainly not at the point in my career where I can come in and go through the motions, and if I give up eight runs in an outing, it’s all good because it’s spring training,” Hughes said. “ For me, coming off a bad season, I’m trying to do as much as I can to make sure that I’m ready to go when spring training rolls around.”

The first step was a return last month to Athletes’ Performance Institute in Los Angeles, where he trained in 2008-09. Hughes reported a few pounds overweight last season, and while he doesn’t attribute his velocity or injury issues to conditioning, he couldn’t rule out a link, either.

“It’s hard to say, but if there’s even a 1% chance that it did, then I’m doing everything I can now to make sure that doesn’t happen again,” Hughes said.

...

“It’s always good to hear your manager say that he expects you to be in that spot,” Hughes said. “But at the end of the day, if you don’t do what you’re expected to do, there’s going to be somebody that will.”

It's time for Hughes to really take that step forward and I'm glad to hear he's working hard and making sure he comes into camp in shape. The sad part is that he wasn't in shape last year, which is unacceptable and probably should have been talked about more when it was an issue. Either way, it's going to more than just losing a few pounds to get Hughes back on track.

It's almost 2am. This is where the advent bags are - my dining room floor. For the life of me, I never clued in to how LONG this bag lineup would be. And I'm not about to figure out where to hang them, or how to, tonight. I do take some comfort in that Oscar is only a year and a half - so the concept of picking 1 bag from a lineup was going to be tough. What I'll likely do is give him a bag a day, so some fun can be had. Oh - and some of you asked what I filled them with - the bags were filled with fun little trinkets from the dollar store. A rubber lizard, a colouring book - fun silly little things. Happy December 1st!! xo Linds

Always new treasures to be found around the Willows. I am sure there is something here waiting just for you or someone you love! Come see us!

'Tis the season for the beautiful pomegranate.

I remember eating pomegranates as a child. My mom would break one open, pull out the bread board under the counter (remember those) and my brother and I would stand there and gobble up all of the juicy seeds.

Perhaps because they're a fruit from my childhood, they are a favorite fruit of the season.

I like to seed the fruit all at once so that there's a lovely bowl from which to scoop up big bites. The seeds are a wonderful topping on just about everything from savory cheese and crackers to...

...delicious sweet pancakes.

We eat a lot of pancakes in our household, but I have an extra spring in my step when we have pomegranates to enjoy with them. It's such a special treat.

I've posted about Hubby's spelt pancakes before and just have to reiterate how delicious and fluffy they are (the trick is whipping the egg whites).

Hubby's Spelt Pancakes

2/3 cup stone ground corn flour

1 cup spelt flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp raw sugar

1 tsp salt

2 eggs - separated

1 1/2 cup milk

2 TB melted butter

Combine dry ingredients in large bowl. Whisk wet ingredients in a small bowl. Whisk egg whites separately in another small bowl until frothy. Combine together with dry ingredients in large bowl.

Hello everyone,

On this very mild but wet day, Christmas came to the sun room, as I took in some greenery from the woods to add some a more seasonal look to our little sun room.

Candles also add to the coziness.

Winterberries, pine . juniper, holly and an old vintage card added to a pretty white cone brighten the posts between the windows.

How about a cup of tea?

A mix of china patterns, but they all go together well.

Pretty candle holders from the thrift shop.

I love this old donkey- a humble reminder of the season.

The glow at nighttime is so romantic.

I will soon be done decorating our home for Christmas, and I am looking forward to cozy evenings by the fireside with the twinkle of lights and the sound of Christmas music playing softly in the background and a good cup of tea!

I have to do some finetuning on the sunroom tomorrow and I have some paper whites and amaryllis started, for in here as well.

The good news is Santa arrived here early, as a new Canon Rebel T3 arrived at our door today!

Today,I am joining Between Naps on the Porch for Tablescape Thursday.

Thank you for visiting,

Carolyn

SITEOPS: Conceptual design for land development

Back in architecture school, I once had to lay out a parking lot for a building I was designing. What a terrible, terrible exercise in nitpicky details and perpetual re-arrangement. The solution I came up with accommodated all of four Smart cars and a unicycle. Awful. If only I’d had access to a tool like SITEOPS from BLUERIDGE Analytics.

SITEOPS is conceptual land development software for folks like architects, civil engineers, landscape architects and land developers. After you’ve brought in a site, you can combine building footprints with critical elements like parking, islands and driveways. These elements are parametric, meaning that they re-draw themselves on the fly as you change aspects of your conceptual design. SITEOPS even provides budget tools for estimating the cost of a project.

Want to see what a parking layout might look like if your building were on the other side of the site? As you slide it over, the parking lot automatically reconfigures to maintain the proper number of spaces. Too cool. This short video shows SITEOPS it in action:

Realizing that lots of their users are also SketchUp devotees, the good people at BLUERIDGE have added an Export to SketchUp button to their product. It lets you figure out the complicated stuff in SITEOPS, then visualize your project in SketchUp. It’s available to SITEOPS customers who have also purchased the Grading and Piping Module. These pictures tell the story better than words can:

This is a view of a 2D site layout in SITEOPS.

A 3D image of the same site in SITEOPS' Grading and Piping Module.

The site after it's been exported to SketchUp. The model includes all of the 3D topographical information from SITEOPS.

Here’s a video that features a couple of SketchUp users talking about their impressions of SITEOPS’ new SketchUp integration:

Update: The folks at BLUERIDGE Analytics are offering a free webinar about using SITEOPS with SketchUp Pro. It's scheduled for 2:00 PM EST on Wednesday, January 11th, 2012. Sign up if you're interested—the webinar also carries 1 PDH or 1 LU.

Posted by Aidan Chopra, SketchUp Evangelist

Somewhere in the middle of the story I am about to relate there is a moral - I'm struggling to find it, but I just know it's in there somewhere.

Maybe I should start at the beginning. Yesterday afternoon I had an appointment to shoot pictures for the latest in my 'French girlfriend' series, it was a beautiful day, I decided to cycle the 20km there and back. Had a great time, easy ride, stopped to take some pictures en route, picked some berries for the imminent Christmas wreath, ... all went like a dream.

Stay with me, there is a point coming ....

At 5pm I collected my youngest from school and stopped at the sports shop on the way home. Well, you can imagine after 20km on my bike, I was feeling like a positive sporty saint, and we sailed around the store looking enthusiastically at all sorts of ~~instruments of torture~~ exercise machines, then we got to the cycle stand where my son was thrilled to find an electric bike and asked permission to try. A very nice young salesman ~~tried to sell it to us~~ explained what a marvellous machine it was, and my boy was off. Well, it looked such fun and I was feeling so sporty for the afore mentioned reasons, that I expressed the desire to have a go too.

Now you can see where this is going ....

Let me tell you never to ride a bike inside a shop with highly polished concrete flooring. I sailed up and down a couple of alleys like a real pro, and was attracting rounds of applause and gasps of admiration (OK, that bit I made up) until the last bend, where the bike and I parted company! The shiny floor took control of the brand new wheels and pulled them from beneath me.

I am sorry to report that the first part of my body to hit the ground was my cheekbone, now black and swollen, hence the photo at the top of this post. The resemblance is alarming, but there's no way I'm showing you a photo so you'll have to take my word on that one.

My sweet son managed to mutter something about it being quite cool to have a mother who wants to try things out; the staff in the store were in a frenzy, worried no doubt that I was about to sue, but I'm not that kind of a girl!

It is extremely annoying to have to admit that one is growing older, and although I don't feel I should abstain from being very active, I guess that age dictates that we have to become more wary of what we do - especially in public!!

Take care today!!

A Brief Blueprint for the Off-Season

Sign Mark Buehrle

Buehrle has started at least thirty games and tossed at least 201 IP in each of the last eleven seasons, and his ERA and FIP have been below-average exactly once in his career, way back in 2006. While he may not represent the "1B" to Sabathia's "1A" that many Yankees fans are clamoring for, such a pitcher does not exist on the market (and paying C.J. Wilson as if he is such a pitcher is foolhardy at best). Buehrle's consistency makes up for the modest upside, and I would have a great deal of faith in him as the Yankees Game 2 starter.

Sign Yu Darvish

You can find further thoughts on Darvish here. Suffice it to say that I believe in his potential, and that upside is worth the gamble, particularly when his posting fee would not count against the luxury tax. This assumes, of course, that Darvish is posted ... which is apparently fifty-fifty at this juncture.

Re-Sign Andruw Jones

Jones battered left-handed pitchers to the tune of a .286/.384/.540 slash line in 2011, good for a 151 wRC+, and he remains a solid defender in both left and right-field. In my mind, there isn't a better option on the market.

Trade A.J. Burnett

This is easier said than done, of course - but the Braves ability to unload Derek Lowe gives me the faintest glimmer of hope. Burnett has the look of a sunk cost at this juncture, and freeing up a roster spot and $6 MM or so (assuming the Yankees pick up around $10 MM per season) would be quite beneficial. If the Yankees can acquire a lottery ticket prospect along the way, that's just gravy.

Follow me on Twitter - @Domenic Lanza

A Prize-Winning Wall

I am so jazzed!

My suitcase wall…

won the November contest over at the DIY Club!

This contest comes with an amazing prize package. I think I should wrap it up and put it under the Christmas tree…but I probably won’t show that much self restraint!

Winning this contest is especially appreciated today, as I am making my daughter’s baptism dress and it’s not going particularly well <sigh>. I think I like sewing quilts and table runners. They don’t have to FIT anything!

The Loft

The loft has been put back together after the painting of the hutch and round table. Here is how it looks today.

This is what it looked like before...

All of the furniture pieces remained, as well as the lamps, curtains and bird cage. All I did was paint the hutch and table. Added some art to the walls (I will show you what I did at the bottom of this post), and made some new blue toile pillows.

Here is the Bee table.

Edited to add this second picture of the bee table. The bee looks off center in the first picture, but it is actually centered on the table.

For the "art" on the wall, I painted an old black frame, white and then stained it with dark wax. The actual "art" is a piece of toile fabric, that I literally duct taped onto cardboard.