100 Cups of Coffee

Kittery

2010-08-08T17:29:00.001-05:00

I'm seeing new creative possibilities with this iPhone thing. Maybe it's time to start this again?

More Good News: Coffee may be good for the heart!

2010-07-20T05:43:00.001-05:00

Overall results showed that consuming more than six cups of tea per day was associated with a 36% lower risk of death from heart disease compared to consuming less than one cup of tea per day. There appeared to be no such protective effect of tea-drinking at any amount for risk of death from stroke. Among coffee drinkers, more moderate consumption levels (2-3 cups per day) were associated with the greatest risk reduction for death from heart disease (21%) compared to drinking less than one cup of coffee per day.

Read more at FYI Living: http://fyiliving.com/nutrition/special-diets/why-our-heart-loves-coffee-and-tea/#ixzz0uDaNpy9B

What Caffiene Actually Does to the Brain

2010-07-16T19:54:00.001-05:00

Excellent article on the effects of caffeine.

How to brew a good cup of coffee!

2010-01-10T20:47:00.002-05:00

This is a truly impressive way to make coffee:

How to Brew a Good Cup of Coffee from Ben Helfen on Vimeo.

Though to be perfectly honest, I'm not convinced it's not a prank.

Coffee Improves Athletic Performance

2009-12-17T07:32:00.003-05:00

According to the New York Times:

Starting as long ago as 1978, researchers have been publishing caffeine studies. And in study after study, they concluded that caffeine actually does improve performance. In fact, some experts, like Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky of McMaster University in Canada, are just incredulous that anyone could even ask if caffeine has a performance effect.
“There is so much data on this that it’s unbelievable,” he said. “It’s just unequivocal that caffeine improves performance. It’s been shown in well-respected labs in multiple places around the world.”

I start my day with 20 ounces of coffee before biking 7.5 miles into work (weather permitting). I thought I was just being stubborn & not willing to give up my coffee addiction. Growing up I always heard about how bad coffee was, and how it dehydrated you and was bad for athletes and all that. It's nice to know I'm doing something right!

Coffee fights Diabetes

2009-12-17T07:29:00.002-05:00

According to the Archives of Internal Medicine:

Individuals who drink more coffee (regular or decaffeinated) or tea appear to have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to an analysis of previous studies reported in the December 14/28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

If this keeps up, I'm going to be superhuman!

Coffee could help cut prostate cancer!

2009-12-10T07:21:00.002-05:00

"It found the heaviest consumers had a 60% lower risk of aggressive tumours than men who did not drink any coffee." Good news!

Drinking Coffee Reduces Alzheimer's Risk

2009-01-16T09:27:00.002-05:00

Good news from Finland:

"Middle-aged people who drank between three and five cups of coffee a day lowered their risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer's disease by between 60 and 65 percent later in life," said lead researcher on the project, Miia Kivipelto, a professor at the University of Kuopio in Finland and at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

The high price of bad coffee!

2008-04-15T17:55:00.001-05:00

I'm sure when pundits talk about how we need to return to good old fashioned values, this is exactly what they mean.

You know your coffee is strong enough when...

2008-04-04T06:35:00.001-05:00

A great image found at ffffound. I wish I knew who did it so I could credit them!

Callithump! New issue! New website!

2008-04-03T09:29:00.001-05:00

The latest issue of Callithump! is now available in the Lord Hall entryway. This time it's totally buttons, at a special 50%-off price of 25 cents! Why all buttons? Lots of reasons, but basically, because we love buttons. I also wanted to challenge myself to see if I could come up with 1,000 different designs in a short period of time, and the 7/8" button format was a fun medium to work in. Yes, I can come up with that many designs, I'm happy to say, but it did require incorporating a whole lot of public domain work. I'm pretty happy with the results. You should check them out yourself at the Art Department in Lord Hall at the University of Maine in Orono.

To celebrate the launch of the new issue, we also have a new website, Callithump.org. We're finally breaking down and letting people buy Callithump! content online, so people who aren't near Orono or Belfast can get in on the fun. The store doesn't have much in it right now, but it will!

Coffee protects the brain!

2008-04-03T07:26:00.001-05:00

This just in from the BBC:

Coffee may cut the risk of dementia by blocking the damage cholesterol can inflict on the body, research suggests.The drink has already been linked to a lower risk of Alzheimer's Disease, and a study by a US team for the Journal of Neuroinflammation may explain why.A vital barrier between the brain and the main blood supply of rabbits fed a fat-rich diet was protected in those given a caffeine supplement.UK experts said it was the "best evidence yet" of coffee's benefits.

Read all about it here.

The Best Audio

2008-01-20T08:32:00.000-05:00

Up until the 70s, the efforts of home audio manufacturers focused on creating the best quality sound possible. Since then, the efforts of the mainstream have focused on making things smaller while adding more and more features. So now you can get something the size of a pack of cigarettes that holds months worth of music on it, lets you watch movies, make phone calls, check your email and so on. All that's fine, and I'd have an iPhone if Belfast was in the service area too. At the same time, I can't help but feel a little disappointed. For all the advances in technology, sound quality has actually gotten worse.

There are alternatives, though. There is the audiophile route. While most of the industry went towards making things flashy and small, a niche market of audiophiles have continued to try to make the best sounding equipment possible. So it's still possible to find audio equipment that sounds incredible, that will make you realize that the music you're listening to on your MP3 player is just a pale imitation of real music. There are problems with this approach, though. First, you have to deal with audiophiles. There may be some audiophiles out there who aren't elitist jerks, but I haven't met them. Secondly, audiophile gear is expensive. There are speaker cables that run into 5 figures! Of course, you don't have to spend that much to get great sound, but the problem that to determine what is inexpensive and good vs. what is cheap crap, you have to talk to audiophiles. Further complicating things are unscrupulous companies like Bose, who sell cheap crap at enough of a markup that the people who buy it think it's good. It's not. It's awful plastic garbage.

A much better alternative is to go retro. Keep your eye out at yard sales, pawn shops, flea markets and you can still find pre-80s stereo gear. I've found vintage receivers for $2 that blew away anything you could get at BestBuy for hundreds more. It was a very different design paradigm back then. Technology was an investment you expected to be using for decades. If something broke, you'd get it repaired. So pre-80s equipment can still be going strong, while we only expect to get a few years of use out of what we buy today. The reason that people put this stuff into yard sales is usually not because it's bad, or stopped working. They just want something smaller. But if you have the space for it, you can pick up something that sounds fantastic for a few bucks!

In general, when you're looking at old gear, there are two things to look for. As a rule of thumb, the heavier it is, the better. If you pick up an old receiver and it's heavy enough to warrant the "lift with the legs, not with the back," rule, chance are it's got some solid state equipment in there. Secondly, look for "real" materials. Things made out of metal, instead of metallicized plastic, or wood instead of laminated wood grain veneer, will sound better than things that aren't.

The Best Dessert Ever

2007-08-13T20:45:00.001-05:00

When the rest of the family was away, Mom used to make treats for just the two of us. Hot fudge was one of my favorites. Hot fudge, same as what you'd put on ice cream, only made from scratch. And without the ice cream. Just a big cup of hot fudge, sometimes with a dollop of peanut butter melting on top.

But the best treat she used to make is still one of the best desserts ever.

Get a box of fresh strawberries. Wash them and let them drip dry. Leave the stems on.

Scoop a dollop of sour cream into a bowl.

Get another bowl, and will it with brown sugar. Fluff the brown sugar with a fork and break up any lumps.

Holding a strawberry by its stem, dip it into the sour cream, then into the brown sugar. Then eat it!

It's one of the most delightful taste sensations you'll ever have, and it's oh so simple.

I worked at one of the most expensive restaurants in Portsmouth, NH. It was called The Blue Strawberry. It's not around anymore, but in its time it was the place to go. You'd expect to spend around $70/person to eat there (unless you ordered drinks). This was in 1980s money, too. Their signature dessert was strawberries, sour cream and brown sugar. Of course they arranged it all preciously on fine china, but otherwise, it was the same dessert my mom and I used to eat. One time a friend went there for dinner and she absolutely raved about the amazing dessert she'd had. She just wouldn't believe me when I told her she could make it herself. "No, they use special brown sugar or something." They didn't. I worked in the kitchen. The got the strawberries from the supermarket, and the brown sugar was the extra cheap bottom shelf big plastic bag o' brown sugar.

Try it for yourself! Use your finest china if you want to impress your date. S/he will think you're a fine gourmet!

Sexy Knock Box?

2007-05-23T06:23:00.000-05:00

To spite the name, a knock box is anything but sexy. It's just a box with a padded bar across the middle that you knock your portafilter against to clear the spent coffee grounds out of it. It's just a customized waste receptacle.

Well, the Grindenstein Knock Box got great reviews on CoffeeGeek, and I got tired of fishing my filter basket out of the trash, so I ordered one. $28.95 delivered from Australia! I ordered it because it's small, cheap, has good reviews and isn't hideous. But sexy? Well, no.... but here's a great add from Grindenstein to make me think differently!

A good excuse!

2007-05-19T17:53:00.001-05:00

Yeah, it's been an age. I've been busy. Very busy! But it's a good excuse this time, in case you hadn't heard...

We're opening up our own coffee shop!

After searching for the perfect coffee drinking experience, I finally decided we'd just have to open up our own place to create that experience.

The past few months have been filled with meetings, trips to other cafés, research, research, a little more research... working extra hours as a freelancer at L.L. Bean to fund the project, letting folks at the University know I'm not teaching there anymore... more meetings...

This isn't going to be a typical coffee shop by any means. Of course, we'll have the best coffee & espresso in the Maine (of course that's sort of like being the best dressed person at a nude beach), and a few good things to eat (vegetarian and vegan, of course). But beyond that, well, for starters, it's going to be non-profit, part art gallery and part performing arts venue. The coffee and food, while we're committed to offering the best we can, is really a means to an end. We're out to help develop and grow and sustain the Belfast area's creative community. Some of the most important political and cultural revolutions of the past few centuries have been born in coffee houses, and we want to create just such a revolutionary environment. The setting is very creative too. It's the basement of the Waterfall Arts Center, right here in Belfast.

In many ways, this is a culmination of my life's work. I'm an artist at heart, and the technology has always been just a means to that end. For years I've been teaching others ways of creating art. Now I'm creating a space for artists to flourish. It's a much more direct, active and personal role than I've had before, and I'm thrilled! I'll try to keep you posted!

Things I've Learned...

2007-01-07T16:16:00.000-05:00

I'm planning a new feature, but considering that it's been 10 months since I wrote any sort of real entry, who knows when and if I'll actually do it. Writing more entries is one of those new years resolutions I said I wasn't going to make, but I'm pretending like I'm going to write more anyway. Looking at my free time over the next few months I have to say, "Not a chance!" but you never know...

Anyway, my new project for this blog, should I ever get around to it, is to take what I learned from the 100 Cups of Coffee project and apply it life as a whole.

I started 100 Cups of Coffee as a way of coming to terms with my coffee addiction. I'm still an addict, but I feel like I have it under control. I'm sure there are lots of people addicted to other substances who feel the same way. Maybe I'm in denial as much as they are! I'll tell you the difference and let you decide. Before I started the project, coffee was just maintenance. It's what I needed to keep myself going, and I'd drink it from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep. If I enjoyed it, that was just a incidental. But photographing it and writing about it led me to a deeper appreciation of coffee as a wonderful, magical thing unto itself. It became a pursuit for the best cup of coffee I could find, and the best cup I could make. This led me to learn about brewing methods, what makes for the best coffee beans, and much more. Learning what constitutes the best cup of coffee is like pulling on what you think is a single thread and discovering it's connected to everything else in the world.

On a typical day, I have just one cup of coffee, made with pure water, organic, shade grown Deans Beans, in a Planetary Designs French press, with a splash of organic half & half. I sip and savor it. I wake up an hour earlier than I'd need to if I just poured my coffee into a to go cup and ran out the door, just so I can have time to ease into the day with a cup of great coffee. If I need a little something to keep me going, I'll make myself an espresso, which has more flavor but less caffeine than coffee. If I'm really overworked, I'll make a cup or two in the afternoon in an Aeropress (an entry unto itself on another day).

The important thing here is that by focusing on quality and trying to have the best, most pleasurable experience possible, I consume less and enjoy more what I'm doing. In this case, it's drinking coffee. I think this applies to a whole lot more than coffee, though. So, in future entries I'll be going beyond coffee and looking at the best things in life, which aren't always free but aren't necessarily the most expensive either.

I've got a whole lot to write about! Check back later to find out if I actually do anything with this!

Coffee could slow mental decline in old men

2006-09-03T12:28:00.000-05:00

A new study from Austria shows that drinking coffee can slow cognitive decline significantly. Yay! I must increase my intake!

Dean's Beans

2006-03-19T19:43:00.000-05:00

I'm just having so much fun with my new lightbox! I've tried to get good pictures of coffee beans before, but I've never been able to capture their sensual beauty. I decided to have give it a go with my new lightbox:

Yeah, that's a little more like it! Still a little too light, though. Dean's Beans Ring of Fire is a very dark roast, and this looks like a medium roast. So a little rearranging of the lights, and here we go again:

There we go! True coffee porn. Doesn't it just make your mouth water? Click here for the real money shot.

Planetary Designs French Presses

2006-03-19T19:39:00.000-05:00

Planetary Designs French Presses
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

A while ago I gave a glowing review to Planetary Design's Double Shot French Press. Since then I've added two more items from them, the 20oz Table Top French Press and the Desk Press Iris.

Planetary Designs liked my review of the Double Shot so much they sent me the Table Top. While the Double Shot had been my favorite mug/press, that spot was instantly usurped by the Table Top.

I've been through about a dozen French presses in my coffe drinking life, and the Table Top is far and away the best I've ever used. It is stainless steel and will never break, unlike my many other ill-fated press pots. It is insulated as well as the best thermos. This solves a key problem with press pots. They lose their heat too fast. The insulation in the Table Top (and the rest of Planetary Design's French Presses) ensure optimum brewing temperature for the necessary four minutes, producing the best pot of coffee a presspot can make. The filter allows the least amount of sediment in the cup of any French Press I've used. Sediment is a complaint lots of people have with French Presses, and many stop drinking before they reach the bottom of the cup. I don't have to do this with coffee brewed in any of Planetary Design's presses. So here's a long overdue thank you to Planetary Designs for the Table Top. I use it every day!

Unfortunately, in practice, the Double Shot, while great in theory, didn't hold up as well in practice. This is not the fault of the product, but with the University's water supply. It is so awful that coffee brewed with it is undrinkable. So while the double-shot let me stash some ground coffee for later use in the base of the mug, I gave up after a few tries and bought a Desk Press Iris. This gives me a portable 20 oz. of coffee I can leave home with, enough to get me to campus. The insulation keeps it hot for the hour-long drive to school and well into class.

Needless to say, Planetary Design's products come with my highest recommendation!

Victrola Coffee

2006-03-18T17:29:00.000-05:00

Victrola Coffee
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Jessie just got back from her whirlwind west coast adventure, from Seattle to Las Vegas to LA. In Seattle she stopped by Victrola Coffee Roasters, where she had the best cappucino she'd ever tasted and lovingly picked me up two bags of coffee. First is the Bolivian, a #1 Cup of Excellence award-winning coffee. My goodness, what a good cup of coffee! It tastes like a lazy summer thunderstorm. Like those days when it is so hot that the thunderstorm is welcome and you sit on the porch and watch the lightning strike and the raindrops splash off the ground, and listen to the deep, distant rumble of the thunder. The Bolivian tastes exactly like that, deep bass rumbles blending with bright, constant patter, a complex blend that you can hold in your mouth and taste new and different things for minutes on end. Jessie also picked me up bag of Streamline Espresso. This is the first time I've ever actually used coffee that was specifically created for espresso. Frustratingly, I can't buy espresso blends around here. This was pretty amazing, too. The crema was the thickest I'd ever been able to make. The taste? It was a little distressing at first. As a straight shot it had me worried. It was a bit too bitter for my taste. But when I layed foamed milk over it for a macchiatto it opened up and became smooth and sensual and wonderful. I've been making even more espressos than usual, and Jess, who usually stays away from coffee, has been asking for them also.

The Victrola is where Tonx works. I've sung his praises more than once in this blog, for his espresso porn and latte art photography. This is where I first heard of the Victrola. Someday, I'll make it out there myself!

Perry Bible Fellowship

2006-03-14T11:16:00.000-05:00

Perry Bible Fellowship is one of the all-time best comic strips ever!

(click comic for full-size version)
From Perry Bible Fellowship.

Macchiato

2006-03-12T16:47:00.000-05:00

Macchiato
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

This is what I'm really hooked on, macchiato, espresso with a dollop of steamed milk on top. The key is to lay the milk gently on top of the espresso so that it doesn't mix. Then you're sipping the espresso through the milk and it blends in your mouth. It's much more intense than a cappuccino, but the milk takes some of the edge off the espresso. I put a light shake of unsweetened chocolate on top. Not enough to change the flavor, but as you sip, you breathe in a lovely mocha smell.

I want to know the secrets of the barristas! It took me three tries to get this shot. The first two I threw away. I thought I did everything the same as usual, but I guess the grind was too fine because the first two trickled out in a sticky sludge. The third was pallatable with the foam on top of it, but would have been undrinkable without it.

I could blame the equipment, but I know that a good barrista can pull a better shot from a cheap machine than I could from a $40,000 maker. Are there camps for people like me? You know, like Space Camp, where you can go get astronaut training even if you don't intend to become an astronaut. Are there barrista wanna-be camps?

the best things in life

2006-03-12T12:40:00.000-05:00

Whoever said the best things in life are free probably had a lot of money, enough not to even give money a second thought. Or they were in denial and trying to make themselves feel better. Sure there's lots of nice things in life that don't cost anything, but some of the best things in life cost a whole lot of money. The best coffee, for example, tends to cost more that bad coffee. A decent car stereo can set you back hundreds, even thousands.

However, some of the best things in life aren't necessarily the most expensive. Illy cups, for example, are the most collectable espresso cups in the world. Some of those can set you back hundreds for a single 2 oz. cup and saucer. They're pretty cool, and I'd love to have some (especially the ones designed by David Byrne!) but somehow I doubt that espresso tastes any better in them than in the generic cups I got at TJ Maxx for a buck a piece.

I don't know if my Bodum Pavina cups are the "best" in the world, but they certainly are the coolest. Interestingly, at $15 a pair, or less, they are among the cheapest. Expect to be seeing them all over the place on television because they're so excellent from a design standpoint. They're double-layered class, such that the inside layer holds the liquid, then there's an empty space before the outer layer. They're like tiny thermoses! They keep your hands from burning while keeping the contents hot for a good long time. They're beautiful too, like some artist's vision of what we'll all be drinking out of in the future. Curvaceous and minimal and smooth, and a pleasure to hold, like cupping a glass breast.

Now if only I could figure out how to make a proper cappuccino to fill it with!

What it's supposed to look like

2006-03-12T11:57:00.000-05:00

shot of shots
Originally uploaded by tonx.

I look at this and I just despair. This is what the crema is supposed to look like! And I get excited when I have just a few millimeters of crema. Admittedly, this is done by true barristas at the Victrola in Seattle. Oh well, it is something to aspire to!

Fear of a Blank Page

2006-03-12T11:10:00.000-05:00

Sketchbook
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

So I'm trying to learn to draw again. It used to be something I was great at, but as soon as I discovered digital, I abandoned traditional mediums. Now I'm trying to get that back and I'm finding it much more challenging than I thought it would be! Where's the Undo button? Oh, that's now called an eraser, but I can't just erase my recent mistakes without erasing the lines underneath it. And getting my hands to draw what my eyes are seeing... it is so frustrating. I mean, I know what it looks like. I can see the shapes, but getting my hand to move in a way that recreates that shape... It is so frustrating! You think you have control over what your body does, but when it comes right down to it, most of us can only make rough gestures. I've tried to fall back to other solutions. On the computer when I can't do something, some sort of technological upgrade will do the trick. So I tried buying more and different pencils, a nicer pencil sharpener, a nice Moleskine sketchbook, but it hasn't worked. Drawing ability is something you have to build. You can't buy it.

So I'm trying to relearn what used to come naturally. Why? It seemed like a good idea at the time. I just feel like I'm out of touch with my visually creative side. Drawing used to be one of the things I loved to do the most but I haven't done it for almost 15 years. It is a different kind of creativity from doing things on the computer. It involves the brain and body in ways that digital art or photography doesn't. And I like a challenge.

One of the biggest challenges is intimidation. There's something terrifying to me about seeing blank page and knowing that it is all up to me to fill it up with things of my own creation. It is like being naked. Everything you see on the page is part of me. And I'm flabby and out of shape.

Nicely though, the new music room turns out to be a great drawing room too. I can put on the Vivaldi or the Tartini and be blissed out to the music while I draw. It really helps to focus on the art.

The subject matter of what I'm trying to draw also seemed like a good idea at the time, but is turning out to be far more difficult than I thought it would be. We found this amazing dead crab sculpture on a trip to St. Andrews, Canada. It turns out that dead crabs are hard to draw! What at first glance seem like clearly defined parts turn out to be built up of subtle shading. Things that are defined by their highlights are challenging to pull off in pencil. I'm going to have to try it in charcoal, making the whole page dark and erasing the light tones.

And, of course, once I got all set up this morning with my sketchbook, pencils and coffee, Dash decided she deserved a dairy treat and I had to move everything quickly so she didn't knock it off. Jessie thinks I spoil her, to which Dash responds, "You're not getting spoiled if you're just getting what you deserve!"

Gentleman Junky

2006-03-11T08:43:00.000-05:00

Double Shot
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

I just can't stop myself! Espresso is so good! I have to restrain myself. Four double-shots a day is probably excessive. But it's more than just the taste. It's the challenge! When I pull a good shot, I immediately want to pull another, trying something a little different to see if I can pull a better shot next time. And so I keep doing shots of espresso until I'm jittery and confused. But I'm having so much fun!

music and life

2006-03-11T08:32:00.000-05:00

New Routine 2
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

I am ashamed to admit I let this happen. Music is one of my great passions in life. For the past 15 years I've been working to build the best stereo system I can. I discovered how to do it on the cheap. High-end audiophiles have upgrade-itas and they're always selling their old stuff at a fraction of what they paid for it. Quality hifi doesn't become obsolete the way other electronics do, so a 40 y.o. piece of gear can sound as good as it did back then. So I've got an incredible sounding system made from people's leftovers. It's the sound I care about though.

And yet when we moved into our new place, I half-heartedly hooked it back up, and then I needed to borrow the line conditioner for the TV, so basically the system has been just taking up space for almost a year.

What a waste! How could I abandon my love this way?

I realize now that I was doing the thing that I find so distasteful in others: trading convenience for quality. I've got my iPod and I just load that up with music, and I can listen for weeks without having to do anything but hit play.

But the difference between an iPod and a finely tuned hifi system is the difference between a McDonald's Happy Meal and a meal prepared by a gourmet chef in a 5 star restaurant. The iPod fills a hole. It's good for background noise, blocking out the distractions of the world to make whatever else you're doing a little more pleasant.

And that's what music has been to me for more than a year now. Just background. Not something I really listened to.

While rearranging the apartment, I hooked the stereo up properly and I remembered my lost love. With a good system you can hear the things that are lost, like John Coltrane taking a quick breath between notes, or musicians turning the pages of their sheet music. Things that remind you that these aren't just notes, but they're real people playing them on real instruments. You hear the size and shape of the room the music was recorded in. You hear heights, depths, resonances you never knew were there.

Now that my system is back together, I find myself doing something I haven't done in a long time: listening to music. I mean really listening. Eyes closed, doing nothing but sitting back and really hearing the notes.

Of late my morning routine has been to drink my cup of coffee listening to music while Dash keeps me company. It is a great way to start the day!

New Routine

2006-03-11T07:41:00.000-05:00

New Routine
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Dash must have her morning half & half, though 5:18 is a little early to be getting up. Hitting the snooze button means knocking her off the bed. She'll leave me alone for 7 minutes before jumping on me again. Oh well, I need to be up anyway...

Coffee Station

2006-03-11T07:17:00.000-05:00

Coffee Station
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

While Jessie's away for her bachelorette party out in Vegas, it is time to do some rearranging! We now have a music room in an area that was just storage. I didn't really mean to do it. I just needed to hang something on the wall and there was a piece of furniture in the way.

Jessie & I are both packrats, though, so really, there's something everywhere in this apartment. Moving a piece of furniture isn't as simple as it sounds, since that means moving something to create a place for what I'm trying to move, and then that thing needs to be moved and so on.

So when all was said and done, I'd moved a bookshelf from the kitchen into the laundry room, a plant stand from the library to the new music room (formerly a storage area), plants from the kitchen to the music room. Then it hit me that we had a little table rotting away on the porch that my grandfather built out of scraps he salvaged when he was working as a carpenter at the University and I refinished sixty years later. It is pretty and has historical and sentimental value while we've got worthless crap furniture inside. So I brought it in and, with a little more rearranging, set up a coffee station.

It is great! I've got all my gear in one spot, and I don't need to move anything or unplug anything in order to use it. The only catch is that it is way too low. I have to kneel down to use it. It looks like I'm praying to the coffee gods.

I guess that's not too far from the truth!

The Scale

2006-03-09T12:26:00.000-05:00

The Scale
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

I'm using Jessie's bathroom scale to measure the tamp (the amount of pressure I push down on the ground coffee with). 30 lbs is the target. I don't know why she gets so upset about me getting her scale all dirty, though. It's only her feet that touch the thing anyway!

My First Crema

2006-03-09T09:59:00.000-05:00

my first crema
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Making good espresso comes down to just a few variables. Why is it so challenging?

A couple of them were easy to knock down. Water, of course, will make or break an espresso shot, but once you lock in the right water you don't need to think about it again. Preheating the portafilter, yeah, just run a blank shot through the empty filter. After that it comes down to three things:

The choice of coffee.
The grind of the coffee.
The pressure you tamp the coffee down into the portafilter with.

At first I started with medium roasts, Dean's Beans Aztec 2 Step and Uprising! I was able to pull shots that were drinkable with enough steamed half & half, but these were nothing close to the rumored "God Shots" that taste so good that you wouldn't dream of adding anything to it.

I just couldn't get it right. The goal is to get a shot that takes about 25 seconds to stream 1.5 ounces. Less than that and the coffee is underextracted and weak. More than that and it is overextracted and bitter. But at the magic amount of time you get the great espresso taste, and you're rewarded with crema. The coffee pours into your shot glass like Guiness, dark with a smoke of bubbles that slowly rise to the surface to create that creamy brown head. For espresso, that head is called crema, and the more crema, the better.

I was getting no crema, and the shots were coming out too fast or too slow. I just couldn't get it dialed in. I tried changing the grind. The finer the grind, the slower the extraction. I just couldn't get it spot-on though. I tried a finer grind and a lighter tamp, because the harder you tamp it down, the harder it is for the water to get through. You need to use about 30 lbs of pressure when you tamp. I appropriated Jessie's bathroom scale and put the portafilter on top of it so I could see how much pressure I was using.

And then, one weekend I ran out of medium roast and all I had was Marakkesh Express, Dean's Beans darkest roast. I'd been avoiding dark roasts for the espresso because the oiliness seemed like it would be a problem, but it was all I had.

Somehow it all clicked. The grind, the pressure, the coffee... the shot streamed out in the dark tan "rat tail" I'd heard about. It "Guinessed" in the shot glass, and the crema was a centimeter thick. I ran to get my camera but the batteries were dead, so by the time I got the picture, the crema had subsided a bit. Still it was gorgeous.

My shots have been consistently decent since then, but not quite as good as that one. Still, I know it is possible and with a bit more practice I'll get it right.

The problem is that now I've become an espresso junky, sometimes having 3 or 4 shots in a day, because I'll be like, "Okay, that was close, what if I tried with just a little more pressure..."

Furry Alarm Clock

2006-03-09T09:04:00.000-05:00

Dash has taken to waking me up every morning at 5:45. I usually get up around then anyway because I like to see the sunrise, so I' glad that she does this. It is so much more pleasant than waking up to an alarm clock!

She'll jump up on my feet, then walk up my legs up to my shoulders. Then she'll jump off and sit beside my head and purr loudly while she knocks things off my bed stand. If I don't get up, she'll jump off and start at my feet again. She only does this to me. Even if Jess is sleeping with a leg or arm draped over me, Dash will carefully avoid Jess's body parts.

After I get up, Dash waits patiently for me on the couch while I make coffee. Then she jumps over to the hassock while I drink my coffee and she laps half-and-half out of a plate. She only wants about half a teaspoon-full and she'll only drink Organic Valley's Organic Half & Half. She's by no means a model of feline grace about it, either. She splatters half & half EVERYWHERE. On the coffee table, on me, on herself. I need to keep towels handy. But she has to have her morning half & half, just as I need my morning coffee. At least I'm a littler neater about it!

It has become my new morning ritual!

Coffee consumption may ward off liver cancer, says Japanese study

2006-02-17T20:38:00.000-05:00

Coffee consumption may ward off liver cancer, says Japanese study
More good news about coffee!

"A Japanese study has found that people who drink coffee are less likely to develop liver cancer than those who abstain. Studying 61,000 people between 1984 and 1997, the study found a significant difference in liver cancer rates among those who drank more than one cup of coffee per day. The researchers hypothesize that chlorogenic acid, found in the coffee bean, may be the cancer-fighting agent responsible."

New Scientist Breaking News - Coffee's effects revealed in brain scans

2006-02-17T19:50:00.000-05:00

New Scientist Breaking News - Coffee's effects revealed in brain scans

"Coffee improves short-term memory and speeds up reaction times by acting on the brain’s prefrontal cortex, according to a new study."

See, coffee is good for you!

Stress & Coffee

2005-12-06T07:13:00.000-05:00

Originally posted by Coriolinus.

Matt Makes Espresso part 1

2005-10-29T07:21:00.000-05:00

I've been searching for a way to take things to the next level. I decided it was time to learn more, so for the past few months I've been reading, researching, trying to find new ways to enjoy coffee. I've learned a lot and I'll share it with you in time. One of the results of this research was that it instilled within me a desire to make espresso.

Quite frankly, I'd never been impressed with espresso. It just seemed like a yuppie drink. Overpriced for a small amount of strong coffee that still had a fraction of the caffeine of a real cup of coffee. But then I read all sorts of people waxing poetic about espresso, and the transcendend experience it can be when done right. But there are a lot of conditions to doing it right, and somehow I don't think the stoned teenagers that staff the coffee shops where I'd gotten my espressos before really put the time and talent into doing it right.

So I decided I'd have to do it myself. It might take years of practice, but ultimately I'd be able to "pull a God shot," as the espresso fanatics refer to it as.

I did some more research and ultimately settled on the Rancillio Miss Silvia espresso maker and Rocky grinder combination. They have such a cult following. There are even websites devoted to modding the Miss Silvia, and people write eloquently about how much they love the pair but...

I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Miss Silvia, I'm sorry to say, is butt ugly. There's no design going into the exterior. Just a big ugly cube of stainless steel, trying to be osequious and hidden in spite of the general ostentatiousness of espresso. And the cult following and people anthropomorphizing their devices was a turn-off, even if the idea of a community I could go to for more information was nice.

Then I found it. The Francis! Francis! X5. It was at TJMaxx for almost $400 less than the retail price.

It is heavy. It is really ugly in an almost beautiful awkwardness like a Stealth bomber painted pink. Pink! This color does not exist anywhere in my house for a reason. But for $400, I'd deal with it. And you know? It isn't bad. Somehow the fact that it doesn't try to blend in makes it easier to ignore. And pink is the new black anyway, so I can just pretend.

Still, there's something I like about the Francis! Francis! in-your-face attitude. Not many companies manage to work two exclamation points into their name. Not many company owners would have a picture of their daughter sticking her tongue out as their company logo.

I've only tried making "real" espresso twice. I've been using up the free package of Illy pods that came with it. The pods are disgustingly convenient. They're little hocky pucks of coffee, ground, compressed and wrapped in a paper filter. You pop it in, make the espresso, pop it out and throw it away. The espresso made this way doesn't taste nearly as good as the shots I ineptly made using my own freshly ground coffee, but they're soooooo easy. Soon, I'll have a proper tamper though (the tamper was missing from the box, unfortunately, so I had to order a new one) and I'll start working on that "God shot." I'll let you know how it works out.

how much is it worth?

2005-10-25T10:26:00.000-05:00

My blog is worth $2,258.16.
How much is your blog worth?

... but I'll take $2000 for it...

Honestly, I have no idea how they come up with that number. It seems very generous to me.

Hot Lunch!

2005-10-13T18:20:00.000-05:00

Sorry everyone. Right now I'm taking the equivalent of 4 grad level classes, while teaching 3 college classes. My bloggery will be sporadic until next year at the soonest, if I don't kill myself with overcommitment & stress. Drinkng shot glass of Aloe Vera gel twice a day keeps the stomach ulcers within acceptable parameters. Guess I should see a doctor about those... but he'll just tell me to cut down on the coffee. Yeah, that'll happen. My plan is to get an espresso machine as soon as I'm not poor. Espresso, while tasting stronger, extracts less caffiene. The caffiene is what's hard on the stomach. Then I will regale you with tales of learning to make coffee!

In the meantime, get your food writing fix at the wonderful Hot Lunch, where my friend Dustin and his friends write about what they're eating.

Naked Coffee

2005-09-09T12:17:00.000-05:00

In the introduction to his book Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs says, "The title means exactly what the words say: NAKED Lunch - a frozen moment where everyone sees what is on the end of every fork."

Sometimes the "fork" is a cup of coffee. I was down in Guatemala a decade or so ago. There I learned that average Guatemalans don't ever get to drink their own coffee. It is too expensive. Less than 1% of the population makes more than $500 a year. American importers have paid as high as $2 and as low as $0.30 a pound for the coffee. Even 30 cents is a huge amount for most Guatemalans. That really floored me. I just couldn't believe that they didn't even get to enjoy their most famous product. Then I saw something else. A man heading out to work to spray pesticides on the coffee plants. He had a big vat of poison strapped to his back with a spray hose attached. He was just wearing plain clothes. Just a cloth t-shirt and pants. No protective gear of any sort. No respirator. There's no OSHA in Guatemala. I'm sure he'd never been told that the chemicals he was carrying were harmful to him as well, or been given any instructions on how to avoid getting those chemicals in his community's drinking water...

Naked coffee... that frozen moment where you see exactly what is in your cup. Maxwell House, Folgers, Starbucks... these companies pay the barest minimum they can for their coffee, and they knowingly encourage practices like unsafe pesticide use. Lest you think this is somehow justified, consider that a few years back, growers were getting around $2 a pound for their beans, but due to changes in the market they now make around 30 cents a pound. Are you paying 85% less for your coffee than you were a few years ago? No, because the consumer is getting exploited along with the grower. While corporate coffee gets a huge increase in profits, the consumer gets screwed, and the growers get less than they need to survive. If you buy coffee from these companies you're paying for this to continue.

My new hero is Dean Cycon. Dean makes it really easy to make a moral stand in a cup of coffee. Dean ONLY sells fairly traded, organic, shade grown coffee.

A quick explanation of what that means. Fair Trade sets a minimum price cap on what the grower gets paid (currently $1.41 for organic, as opposed to the 30 cents Starbucks etc. pay). That's just the start of what Fair Trade does, but essentially it means if your coffee has the fair trade designation, you can be reasonably sure that the growers aren't being exploited. Organic means (and here there are many standards and definitions, but generally speaking...) that the coffee was grown without chemical pesticides or fertilizers. It is good to see because you know the grower wasn't poisoning themselves or their community to grow the coffee, and you know you aren't drinking trace amounts of pesticides. Shade grown does organic one better. It means the coffee is grown while disrupting the local flora and fauna as little as possible. It means growing with the environment. Just because something is organic doesn't mean there wasn't a forest clearcut to create a field to plant the coffee in.

As I said before, though, Dean makes it easy to be moral. You should be buying nothing but organic, shade grown, Fair Trade coffees because it is the right thing to do. But sadly, too many people don't really care what's on the end of their fork. As long as something is cheap and convenient it really doesn't matter who suffered to get something into your mouth. And to be honest with you, even though I've seen that suffering first hand, I need that cup of coffee. If Starbucks is the only thing around, I'll get my coffee there because caffiene withdrawals will render me nonfunctional if I don't. And if money is tight, I'll go with the non-organic products to save a buck.

But Dean's Beans don't cost any more than other specialty coffees, at least at the Belfast Coop where I shop. And if one cares nothing about the rest of the world, and only about one's own pleasure, they still win with Dean's Beans. You can compare for yourself. Take any brand of coffee that has organic and shade grown versions and do a taste-test with the non-organic options. Organic coffee tastes better than non-organic. It is noticably richer, fuller. Shade-grown coffee tastes that much better again than ordinary organic.

Dean's Beans make the best coffee I've ever had. Nothing else will do for me now. I had a few pounds of Alta Dena, which is darn good coffee, but I gave that to my sister. I even carry some ground up beans with me when I leave town so I can make my own when I'm away from Belfast (in the base of my Planetary Designs French Press mug, of course!). If you're a friend, relative or student of mine, let me know and I'll be happy to pick some up for you. Otherwise, you can find a Deans Beans reseller near you, or order beans here.

Hurricane Katrina did a number on New Orleans. Although we didn't here about it much in the news in the US, Hurricane Stan has done much, much more damage to Guatemala, El Salvador and other Latin American countries than Katrina did to NOLA. Sadly, I think many of us have overdosed on compassion, and don't have much left over. But just by buying Fair Trade coffees exclusively you are doing something. You are helping. At least it's a start!

My new favorite thing: Planetary Design's Double Shot French Press

2005-08-10T11:36:00.000-05:00

I love gadgets and spend an inordinate amount of time and money on them. Very few of these things, however, have altered my life on a day-to-day basis. Planetary Design's Double Shot French Press Mug, however, is one that has.

I'd passed by the Double Shot, sold at the Belfast Co-op where I do my shopping, many times before and never really gave it much attention before. It seemed just a little gimicky to me. But a few weekends ago friends Dustin and Hillary were visiting and Hillary just couldn't stop talking about how cool it was, so I gave it another look. Thanks, Hillary, for making me notice!

The idea is pretty simple. Take an insulated coffee mug and build in a French press, thus making it portable. Not a bad idea, really, since French presses tend to be made of glass, and are easily breakable. Planetary Design's Double Shot French Press Mug is more than this. It is a design masterpiece. Bodum gets the credit for making the best French presses in the world, but after having the Double Shot in my life for a couple weeks, I have to wonder if Bodum's more honest claim is just that they have the best marketing. My Bodum press has been sitting on the counter since I got the Double Shot, even when I'm not taking my coffee on the road.

For starters, look at the heart of any French press, the plunger mechanism. It is a patented design, far superior to any I've seen. It has a plastic flange with a built-in spring to ensure that it is constantly pressed against the side of the mug. Some French presses just use a solid plastic disc. The Bodum uses the slightly better method of coiled spring to press the screen against the side of the carafe. The problem with these methods is that if the plunger tilts you wind up with coffee grounds in your drinking coffee. Planetary Designs provides the best seal I've ever seen, far more effective than Bodum's, and it is also very forgiving. No grounds even if the screen tilts. And yet it is a simpler mechanism. The screen just has one part as opposed to Bodum's three, making it much easier to clean.

The lid is also well thought-out. It actually has a rubber O-ring that completely seals the lid to the mug. There's an additional screen where the coffee comes out. I'm not sure if it is the addition of this second screen, or if both screens use a finer mesh than Bodum and other French presses do, but the end result is that you can actually drink your coffee down to the last drop. Fans of French presses know that you have to avoid that last swallow of coffee in the cup. That's the one drawback to brewing coffee using a screen instead of a filter. You wind up with a certain amount of sediment at the bottom. It is a small price to pay, but even still it catches me off guard when I'm hurriedly quaffing my last bit of coffee before running out the door and wind up with a mouth full of grounds and powder. This isn't an issue with the Double Shot.

The Double-Shot is made with marine-grade stainless steel (whatever that means) and is insulated. Insulated mugs are something I tend to avoid for around-the-house use. They're fine for traveling, but (and of course this could just be my overactive imagination because stainless steel is supposed to be nonreactive, so there's no way this could be true... could there?) I find that even in stainless steel travel mugs the coffee tastes different to me. Not as good as it would taste in a ceramic mug. Maybe it is the "marine grade" stainless steel that makes a difference, but coffee in the Double-Shot tastes just as good as it does if I made it in my glass French press. Even better, since it doesn't have the sediment and the insulated cup keeps the coffee consistently hot, seemingly for hours, giving me time to savor the taste before the coffee goes cold.

I was initially resistant to the directions that came with the cup which said to add the cream to the coffee grounds BEFORE pouring in the hot water. Usually the cream is the thing that cools the coffee off enough to drink so you don't have to wait, so I worried that adding it before brewing would make the water too cool to brew a decent cup. The insulated mug, however, more than compensates for the cooling effect of the cream.

All this is cool enough to justify the price ($28 online from Liquid Planet, $22 at the Belfast Coop if I remember correctly. If you're a friend of mine let me know and I'll pick one up for you...) but the Double Shot still holds one feature that'll make you say, "Oh, that is SO COOL!" Pull off the bottom (sealed with another rubber O-ring) and inside that is an air-tight cannister that will hold enough ground coffee for two more cups (or secret documents or whatever other contraband you need to smuggle). You know, I've always hated those people who, at the coffee shop or restaurant say, "Can I just get a little hot water for this?" and pull out their own tea bag they brought from home. It's always seemed like a totally cheapskate thing to do. But with this massively cool hidden canister thing I may just be losing cool points this year.

So, there you have it. My latest "all-time favorite thing EVER!" I'm sure I'll have another one shortly. I usually do, but I'll be enjoying it with my Double Shot in hand.

yeah, yeah

2005-08-10T11:32:00.000-05:00

Obviously, it "didn't take" this time around. I blame the weather. It has just been too beautiful. Turns me into an airhead. I need the cold, gray days of fall/winter/spring to get anything done. You should visit the Castles journal though. I've actually been writing there, and it is way more interesting than 100 Cups of Coffee anyway.

cup 14

2005-07-11T07:51:00.000-05:00

cup 13

2005-07-11T07:50:00.000-05:00

cup 12

2005-07-11T07:49:00.000-05:00

cup 11

2005-07-11T07:48:00.000-05:00

cup 10

2005-07-11T07:47:00.000-05:00

cup 9

2005-07-11T07:45:00.000-05:00

cup 8

2005-07-11T07:43:00.000-05:00

cup 7

2005-07-11T07:41:00.000-05:00

cup 6: Beach Pea

2005-06-30T13:03:00.000-05:00

Where: Beach Pea, Kittery, ME
When: 8 am
Who: Ethel LeClair
What: house French Roast

cup 5: only half a cup?

2005-06-30T12:15:00.000-05:00

Where: Curti Residence, Kittery, ME
When: June 29, 8 am
Who: Chip and Ernie
What: Equal Exchange

No chance for a picture this morning. Sorry. I should have known. Mom said she'd pick me up at 8:30 am to go to Brenda's, but of course she showed up 45 minutes early, and I only had time to chug half a cup of coffee before she wanted to leave.

Brenda's was remarkable, as expected. Brenda is the self-proclaimed "Bag Lady of Lee." She is the queen of, well, stuff. She goes to yardsales and picks through trash at the dump to find things of questionable value and then finds ways to give them value. Today she had a case of what appeared to be 8.5" x 11" paper cut into thirds, the long way. She was trying to find a way to make these 7500 2.8" x 11" sheets useful. She'd tried glueing then ends of stacks of them together with a hot glue gun with acceptable results only to realize that just one pad was enough to take down all the phone numbers and create all the shopping lists you'd want to for years to come. So she was looking for other uses. Mom needed a stand for her new apartment so we went through the basement and the shed looking for furniture. So much stuff! Floor to ceiling of years are yardsale finds. There's one room devoted entirely to McDonald's Happy Meal Toys (just McDonald's, other fast food toys are in a different area). Another room is just for Legos. An area of the shed has so many baskets hanging from the rafters that you can't see the ceiling, and there's another area devoted entirely to prints of every sort. The stuff goes on and on.

Brenda has rules when going to yardsales: You can never pay asking price for anything at a yardsale. You can never leave a yardsale empty-handed. The latter rule has led to some interesting collections. Brenda let me in on the secret to never leaving empty handed. You choose something to collect every yardsale season, and make sure it is something that most people would consider so worthless that they wouldn't even put it in the yardsale. One year she choose plastic flowers. At the end of the summer she made a giant mountain of flowers to engulf her mailbox. She left it like that for a while, then sold all the flowers at her own yardsale the following summer. She's more selective about her fake flowers now. She gets very realistic ones, and matches the flowers to whatever is in season outside, leaving them up only while the real flowers are in bloom outside and changing them to match the changing season. She delights in fooling people into thinking the fake flowers are real. It is important to note that she often has the real things growing right outside the door and could go out and cut the same flowers to have inside, but that wouldn't be as fun. Now Brenda is acquiring fake fruit. She doesn't know exactly what she's going to do with it all yet. That is half the point of getting it, though. When she has enough, inspiration will strike her and the fruit will take its place in the grand scheme of things.

Sadly, this trip, coming so soon after my big move, I wasn't so much in the mood to acquire more stuff. I think in a couple months I'll take a trip down again. I did manage to find a candy dot maker in amongst all the stuff. Seemed like a perfect way to use some of those 7500 strips of paper.

On returning to the Curti house, I found the remaining half cup of coffee sitting on the counter where I'd left it. I took a swig. Yeah, it had been sitting on the counter in 90 degree heat all day, but the acid in coffee will keep cream from spoiling (I think) so as long as it doesn't tast bad or have chunks, you're OK. Unfortunately, there was a chunk, and I had a brief moment of "swallow or spit?" thinking it might be just a breadcrumb. I spat it out into the sink and it tried to crawl away. A black and had found its way into my coffee. I was pretty grossed out by now. My addiction must be somewhat subsided now, because I dumped the rest of the coffee out and didn't make any more.

So THAT is why I only had half a cup of coffee today.

cup 4: friendly again

2005-06-28T09:53:00.000-05:00

Where: The Friendly Toast, Portsmouth, NH
When: June 28, 8:30 am
Who: Jessica Brakeley
What: house

cup 3: pug ugly

2005-06-28T09:50:00.000-05:00

Where: Curti residence, Kittery, ME
When: June 26, 7:30 am
Who: Chip & Ernie
What: Equal Exchange something-or-other

cup 2: The Friendly Toast

2005-06-28T09:47:00.000-05:00

Where: The Friendly Toast, Portsmouth, NH
When: June 26, 8:30 am
Who: Jessica Brakeley
What: House blend

Cup 1: Marky

2005-06-28T07:10:00.000-05:00

Where: The Bohemian, Brunswick, ME
When: June 25, 10:30 am
Who: Mark Leaman
What: Bohemian Uprising

Yes indeed, the Bohemian still exists. On my previous visit to Brunswick I got the mistaken perception that it was gone, replaced by Little Dog. Actually, it had just moved around the corner. Mark met me at Little Dog, then dragged me over to the Bohemian. It was the only place in town that met Mark's criteria at that moment: WiFi and air conditioning.

I'll probably get letters for saying this, but honestly, I liked the old Bohemian better. I can understand why it moved. The old place was crappy and falling down and had nowhere to sit indoors, but it was, well, bohemian. It felt like a West Coast coffee house, one of those places that existed before the masses discovered you could make money selling good coffee. The new place is about as bohemian as a Starbucks. It is crisp and clean and polished and air conditioned and wi-fied. The coffee is an order of magnatude better than Starbucks. BOHEMIAN : STARBUCKS :: STARBUCKS : FOLGERS, and the people watching is better also. The Bowdoin College crowd is just lovely to look at.

The Bohemian was a stopover on the way to my sister's, where I'd be spending the week looking after their pugs and chickens while the family vacations.... (more later, gotta run...)

home

2005-06-24T15:18:00.000-05:00

home
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: Home, Belfast, ME
When: 8 am, June 23, 2005
Who: just me
Coffee: Avalon Organic French Roast
Mood: happy

Welcome to my new home! This isn't particularly a good shot of it. I was trying to capture as much as possible of it, and include the coffee resting on my knee. To my right are peonies. There's actually a whole wall of them beside me and I can sit there and drink in the smell. The scent of peonies, I've come to realize, is the Platonic ideal flower smell. Every other flower scent is just a variation on this smell (well, except for carrion flowers...). Peonies throng the front window, too, and when the wind blows just right it is pure wonderfullness. Just above my knee is a lupine. "Pine cone and tassel" is the official state flower. Lame. It should be the lupine. This time of year the lupines are in bloom, and you'll be driving down the road and turn the corner and there'll be a hill or a field turned purple by lupines. The site is so magnificent I've almost gone of the road because of it. The patch of mud on my right is what will be a flower garden. I've planted a mix of short and medium annuals and perrenials. I need to find something tall for the back. These will grow and fill in, hopefully. Behind the hedge of lupines I've started a perrenial herb garden. Peeking out between the house in the middle and the trees is the Atlantic Ocean. That's right. I can see the ocean when I drink my morning coffee!

I'm loving this place!

Meanwhile, I wrapped things up in Pembroke last week, which, except for a few days in July, I'm on "vacation" until September. I'm going through withdrawal at the moment. After months of being on the go from waking in the morning to collapsing at night, I am free to do what I want. I feel like one of those poor saps in the Allegory of the Cave, though. I've been in the cave of constant work for so long that now I am out of it I am just dazzled by the light, paralyzed by freedom. The real world hardly seems real. The responsibility of choosing my own destiny, even if it is just deciding what I'll do this one day, is overwhelming. So I'm taking this week to chill, veg out, think no deep thoughts. Next week I'll start engaging with the real world again.

Meanwhile, here in a new town, I've realized that my relationship to humanity in general is pretty messed up. In a nutshel, I've forgotten how to make friends. It seems like I knew how at one point, but when you've been a workaholic for years you start making sacrifices. Making friends was something I cut out. So here I am in a new town and I don't know anyone but Jessie, who moved here with me, and our landlords, who live upstairs, and I'd like to meet new people and make new friends, but I just have no idea how. No idea.

So, I'm going to start another 100 cups of coffee. Sunday is my tentative starting date, but I've got a lot of driving/hanging out with friends & family that day so it might get pushed back. I hadn't planned to, but I'm feeling the need. The first time around was for artistic/learning purposes. This time around it is for personal growth. My whole life has changed. There's been a whole lot of endings in the past few months, and now, after an interlude, things are beginning. My therapist was always after me to write things down, but I really have a hard time writing without an audience. So please, join me as I live and pay attention and drink coffee and talk about it. Feel free to jump in whenever you want!

Oh, and you're all cordially invited to join me for a cup of coffee if you're in the area. Just drop me a line!

interlude 2: serenity

2005-06-03T10:47:00.000-05:00

Thursday we woke up to the sunrise over the Atlantic ocean, and then noticed the sunlight reflecting off the ocean onto our ceiling. It was the first sunrise we've seen at our new home. It rained almost constantly for the month of may, so seeing the sun for the first time felt miraculous. Then it hit us: this is our home. We really, honestly have a plce with a bedroom that overlooks the ocean. And that is just one of the little wonders that keep catching us off guard. Things we knew all along, but there's a difference between knowing them as a fact and actually experiencing them. Like walking through the park that overlooks the bay and seeing that incredible view and realizing that this isn't just some place we're visiting, this is our home now. Or walking home from downtown along the ocean. Or discovering a vegetarian restaurant just four blocks away from our apartment. I didn't even realize there were vegetarian restaurants in Maine other than Little Lad's.

Wednesday was the first full day I'd been able to spend in Belfast. It was also our first sunny day in weeks. I spent most of the day outside in the garden, weeding, planting the handful of perennials I rescued from my former home in Orono. It was the first time I really started to feel like I was living in Belfast. The morning before I went to 17 Margin St., Orono, ME 04473 for the very last time, to help my mother finish packing and cleaning the last few things before the new owners took over. The past weeks have been heartbreaking. This has probably been the most difficult time of my life since my dad died. Letting go of Orono and the family home really has been like losing a family member, and losing part of who I am. The new owners had started moving furniture in before we moved out. Big, tacky, expensive leather crap that stunk so badly of cigarettes that I had to close the doors on it because it stank up the house. In the garage they left a HUGE bar, larger than I'd seen at most real bars. So my ancestral home will become a party house for rich kids whose daddy is buying them a house to go to college in. I really hoped for better for it. Tuesday was cold and rainy, a perfectly depressing day, a perfect day for endings. I stood in the cold after everyone left and wondered how I felt. I'd gone numb. "I'll just have to blog about it later, and then read the blog, and find out how I felt," I told myself, and drove away from 17 Margin for the last time.

I talked to my mother on Tuesday night, after she'd made it down to her new home in Kittery. "I'm not going to miss the place," she told me. "Too many bitter memories." She's right. We moved there because after my dad's brain aneurism he couldn't hold a job anywhere, and we needed a place to rent, and Nana LeClair rented us the top half of the house for cheap. But she was an absolute bitch, and dad kept getting sick again and again, the neighborhood went downhill, we had Faye the psycho lawn mowing neighbor...

A week ago I had Faye for the view out the front window. Now I have sunrise over the Atlantic. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Sometimes you can be holding onto something so tight you don't even know what you're holding onto. And then when you let go, there was nothing there at all. You just didn't realize it because you were clutching so tight. Suddenly I find myself in a place of beauty and opportunity where all I saw was loss and heartbreak, and all I had to do was let go.

Interlude

2005-05-18T06:27:00.000-05:00

Elsewhere in this blog, I said something about the fact that when I am living a life worth blogging about I have no time/energy to write! The time since my last entry has been no exception. This past month my life has been undergoing some of the biggest changes ever, and I haven't written a word about it. There's the usual hectic work stuff, what with one semester ending at the University and the school year coming to an end in Pembroke with lots of projects needing to get wrapped up, a Mayterm starting, where I teach an entire semester's worth of content in three weeks. On top of this all, I've been prepping an online class. For some reason I thought it would be a really great idea to create new content for it rather than just videotape my live class and put it up online the way most instructors who teach online classes do. That struck me as lame, like charging the full price for something used, it seemed like cheating the students. But now that I've actually engaged in the process of creating all this material, I'm thinking cheating the students wasn't such a bad idea...

There's no way I could have been writing about cups of coffee this past month. Consumption hasn't been measured in cups. I'm back up to the level of coffee consumption I was at when we were writing the books. Two pots a day, or more. A cup of coffee is never far from my hand, and I'm drinking it all day long. I can't remember when the last day I just relaxed was. I think it was my birthday, April 17th, but even then I think I was running around.

This level of business is manageable under ordinary circumstances. I work better with a full plate. But there's more: we're moving. I've moved around a lot. That's nothing new. But this time it's different. Four generations of my family have lived in this house (three of them LeClairs, the fourth my great-grandfather's mother-in-law). The family's been here in three different centuries. My parents moved into this house twenty-five years ago. While I haven't lived here all that time with them, it has still been home. A constant. A place where I know I can go, and where I can keep "that stuff" that I didn't want to move.

It has been hard. I feel like I'm losing my home and my history. Mom has deemed me incapable of ownership because I don't have a house, so everything she owned that isn't going into her new apartment got divided amongst my siblings. The only thing I have of any sentimental or family historical value is a brass lamp my father made. So all the historical artifacts are gone, the physical objects I could point to and say, there, that belonged to so-and-so, and feel that tie to the past and know that I came from somewhere. This house, so many years, so many memories... someone else's now. "That stuff" stored in boxes that I didn't want to move before. Love letters from old girlfriends, stupid little trinkets I'd hung onto for sentimental reasons... but it is all evidence. Time passes, and I repeat the stories of the things I did in the past and after a while I'm not sure if these things really happened, or if they are just stories. But going through these boxes and finding evidence, proof that I really was there after all, and I did those things and knew those people and it was all real. And then it all goes into the trash.

I may sound melancholy about this, but overall I'm feeling very positive about it all. Sure, there are frustrations, and any change is difficult and stressful, even when it is for the better. I am losing my past, but I'm seeing it as pruning off the dead branches. I am losing my home, but the soil here is spent, so my roots here will never grow past where they are right now if I stay here. The neighborhood my house is in has been in a decline for a long time, and doesn't show signs of improving. The old families are almost all gone, and when they move their houses are bought by landlords who rent out to college students. There are houses on this street that have so much peeling paint they look like they are shacks, and other houses where the occupants moved furniture and other big garbage out to the curb to be picked up by spring cleaning last year. Only the town doesn't do spring cleaning anymore, so the crap has just sat outside in front of the house for over a year... I'm not going to miss any of these things! And I'm not going to miss Faye W**dc**k, my insane, obese, ignorant, racist, homophobic, anti-semitic, loudmouthed neighbor and her riding lawnmower fetish. Picture Jello molded into a vaguely human form, clothe it in grey sweat pants and sweat shirt and perch it on a riding lawnmower, and then make it mow the lawn for hours, while chainsmoking. It isn't that the yard is really big enough to warrant mowing it for hours. It is just that she goes over the same spot over and over and over again. I've counted. Five, six, seven, eight times around the same tree, the same spot, like the lawnmower is some demon, possessing her. It is especially surreal when she does it during a drought, and the lawn has basically turned to sand and there was no grass to mow in the first place, and she'll still be out there kicking up clouds of dust for hours on end. Sometimes, if the neighbor's yards aren't up to snuff she'll go and mow theirs, uninvited. It'd be amusing if it wasn't so annoying. She usually does it on a nice sunny weekend day, making it impossible to be outside enjoying the day. Yeah, I'll be really happy not to have her for a neighbor anymore!

Mom's moving to Kittery, and this is a good thing. She'll be closer to the rest of our family, just five minutes away from my sister. Jess & I are moving to Belfast where we have a great apartment overlooking the ocean and there are at least two good places to sit and get a good cup of coffee just a few minutes walk away. I may be losing something of the past, something of my own history, but when it comes right down to it, life in Orono has been OK at best. It is relatively safe, relatively predictable. I feel like nothing super bad is going to happen to me here, but also that nothing super fantastic will happen either. I don't know what the future will bring. In Orono, at least I had that illusion, but that isn't necessarily a good thing. Now anything is possible. That's scary as hell because everything could fall apart from here on. But wonderfulness can happen, too!

"MY heart has spread its sails to the idle winds for the shadowy island of Anywhere," to quote Tagore. Well, not yet, but soon it will be true. Today I am stressed, overworked, overtired, overcommitted, terrified. But soon I'll let go of all this extra baggage and set sail.

Starbucks Delocator

2005-04-05T07:11:00.000-05:00

This is a great thing! I've already talked about the evil that is Starbucks, so I won't go on about it again. Here's a handy little page that will help you find alternatives when you're on the road, don't know where to go, and want a decent cup of coffee. There goes the only reason to patronize a Starbucks!

The new project has begun!

2005-03-27T12:35:00.000-05:00

Pop on over here for my latest project. Last year I wrote a novel. I intended to rewrite it and publish it online, and charge, like, a dollar for it. Not that it isn't worth much more than that, but I was thinking about the first book I co-authored, Digital Prepress Complete, and how, after everyone took their cut, we made about a dollar off ever $50 book that was sold. Hence, when I hear about all these copyright laws that are supposed to be protecting my rights as a creator. Protecting everyone else's profits is more like, since we had a fairly good contract when it came right down to it, which meant that only 92% of the profit of the sales of the book went to everyone else. So I was thinking if I could connect directly with the reader, eliminating all the middle leaches, I could sell the book for a dollar and still make more money.

I still plan on doing that. However, I realized that it is going to take a lot more rewriting than I initially thought. This is because I initially wrote the novel to be a serial in the old movie matinee sense. A series of ten episodes, each with increasingly perilous cliffhangers and shocking revelations. I intended for there to be a gap between reading each chapter, to build anticipation and make the reader anxious to find out what happens next.

I just didn't find it to be as much fun when I put it all together as a novel. So here I am presenting it as it was intended, in serial form. I am rewriting it now to be a better serial, not to be a better novel. I'll be adding a new episode every week. I'll also be maintaining an accompanying blog. When it is all done, I'll rewrite it once again to make it into a novel, which I will sell online and try to publish, for reasons I've written about in the new blog already, and won't repeat here.

I really want lots of feedback on the new project! I want to take it from "pretty good" to "totally cool" and feedback from you, dear reader, can make all the difference in the world. Or multiverse, as the case may be. Heh.

It is a fun serial, called Castles. It is a kind of mystical action adventure coming of age story. It is also about castles in every interpertation of the word. Someone once said, neurotics build castles in the clouds, psychotics live in them. Both kind are in the book, as are the castle walls we build around ourselves for protection, but also wind up keeping people out who might be friends, allies or lovers at the same time. It is also about the castle, an important chess move.

Go give it a try! Click on Episode One for a pdf file of the first chapter. I'll be adding another every week. Enjoy!

The Master!

2005-03-19T07:51:00.000-05:00

Latte poured by Kyle at Victrola Coffee
Originally uploaded by tonx.

I guess I'm not quite done with this blog! In case you missed it, I just had to point out Tonx's wonderful photoblog featuring latte art and coffee making activities. Beautiful work that makes me realize how far I have to go!

Thank you, and Good Night!

2005-03-15T09:36:00.000-05:00

Thanks for coming, everyone! This experiment is essentially at an end. I've got to do a few tweaks here and there, and make sure I filled out all the placeholder entries, but I'm done with the regular updates.

Was the experiment a success? I'm not sure. I learned from it, which was the point. It would have been nice to have more comments, but then, I never went out of my way to promote this blog, and my entries were, for the most part, pretty mundane and non-controversial. Not the sorts of things that really warrant comments! I also picked the worst time to do this blog. December through March are my most boring months out of the year. I strive to be a complete recluse, hiding under the blankets and seldom doing anything more than watching TV. The rest of the year I lead a life of action and adventure, I assure you!

I recommend doing something like this to everyone. Take a subject that is static and non-controversial and write about it for far longer than is sensible. Try to keep it interesting. Try never to repeat yourself. I've never heard of this as an excercise for developing one's writing skills, but it is definately a good workout.

I think I cheated too many times, though. I am dissappointed in myself for that. I think too many entries were shaggy dog stories. If you're not familiar with that term, a shaggy dog story is a long, rambling tale that purports to be about a shaggy dog, but after going on and on about nothing to do with a shaggy dog, the narrator says, "and then a shaggy dog walked by..." and continues with the rambling. I felt like too many times I said, "blah blah blah, and then I drank a cup of coffee, blah blah blah." I think a bigger challenge would have been to write about 100 cups of coffee but not bring in any information that doesn't directly relate to the cup of coffee. It'd also be a good way to go crazy! But what a divine madness it would be. You'd be the best writer about coffee in the world by the time you were done.

I am more pleased with the photos than I am with my writing. I think they managed to stay focused specifically on the coffee more than the writing did. I also think they improved more over time than the writing did.

I am not sure I actually wrote anything good in this blog. But it is hard to have perspective. When I feel like I've written something good is when the writing writes itself and it just flows out, and when I stop I can't really remember what I've written. That never happened with this blog. It happened with my novel, mid-way through the third chapter. After that the effort was just keeping my body moving long enough for the words to get out. The book wrote itself.

I doubt that I'm done writing about coffee. I'm planning on pitching to the Bangor Daily News that they let me do a regular column on coffee. Only this time it will have a different slant. I want to find the best cup of coffee in Maine. When the SCAA gives its Golden Cup Award, they don't actually visit the coffee shop. Instead, a sample of the coffee and the water used is mailed to them, and they analyze it in a lab. To me, this is useful in establishing the ballpark, but the chemistry of the coffee is just one small part of the equation of what makes a great cup of coffee. It is atmosphere, mood and je ne sais quois. Context. So I want to travel around the state to find the best cup of coffee in it. I want it to be a community effort, too. I want people to contact me about the places they think are the best, and I will go and meet them there, and drink coffee with them, and chat. Part restaurant review, part travelogue... I want to be the Hunter S. Thompson of coffee!

You can help make this happen. If you've been reading this blog and enjoying it, please write a few kind words of praise that I can quote from. I'm putting together a press kit to send to the Bangor Daily, and having positive reviews to include would be a great thing!

I said that the next thing I wrote about was going to be about quitting coffee. I lied. To do that I'm going to need a few days when I can be completely out of circulation while I go through withdrawals, and I've got too much going on right now. It looks like July, maybe August I'll be able to spare the time.

So, next I'm going to be blogging about John Milton's Paradise Lost. Why? It is a challenge. It is a great poem, but it has been analyzed and written about so much. What new does anyone have to say about it? I certainly bring nothing to the table when it comes to talking about Paradise Lost. So that is my challenge: find something new to say about Paradise Lost. Oh, and to up the ante, make it interesting reading for people who've never read it and could care less about literary analysis.

Why do I feel compelled to do these things to myself? Do other writers set out to make things difficult for themselves? When I wrote my novel, I decided to write an entire novel in four months (while I was also teaching and taking classes). I need to write another novel. I also need to edit the first one and actually do something with it, like try to get it published. My experience with the publishing industry has been so awful, though, that I am reluctant to ever deal with it again. I know there are a number of writers out there who use blogging as part of their writing, but I haven't investigated them yet, suprisingly. I should.

Anyhoo... I'll post a link to this blog when I start my next experiment, and if there's some interesting epilogue, I'll post that, too. So, thanks for reading, everyone! Have a safe drive home. Let's meet for coffee some time soon!

Cup 105: Cafe on the Corner

2005-03-08T10:39:00.000-05:00

Cafe on the Corner
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: Café on the Corner, Dover, New Hampshire
When: March 8, 2005
Who: Jessica Brakeley
Coffee: Port City Rocket Fuel
Mood: Happy

Here's a rundown of the Portsmouth area towns and their nicknames:
Somersworth = Scummersworth
Rochester = Raunchester
Dover = Dirty Dover
Portsmouth = Pretentious Portsmouth

The other town either don't rate nicknames, or I don't know them. Scummersworth and Raunchester, but I've lived and worked in Dirty Dover and Pretentious Portsmouth, and I have to say, Dover's alleged dirtiness has been its salvation. Portsmouth looks pretty, but it has become unlivable. The people who run that city should be shot as traitors. They've betrayed the people who lived there in service to the landlords and business owners. Portsmouth was a great city once, but in recent years all efort has gone into atracting more business and tourism with no concern to the people who lived there. Now it is a bedroom community for Boston. The families who lived there have moved to towns like Kittery and Elliot, while the younger people have moved to Dover. Dover may be "dirty" to Portsmouth's clean, but it is the clean of a hooker who's done herself up to attract johns. Beneath the pretty surface is disease, addiction and despair. I'm so glad I don;t live in Portsmouth anymore!

Dover, on the other hand, seems to be trying hard not to become Portsmouth. There are concerts in the park that actually seem to be for the people who live in Dover, instead of the same musical every night all summer long that Portsmouth puts on to entertain the tourists. There are affordable restaurants and pleasant people. And there is the Café on the Corner, where people gather for good coffee and pleasant coversation. Sure, there may be places like that in Portsmouth, but in Dover there is a pleasant lack of people who are out to be seen, who are more concerned with how they are dressed and who is looking at them than with actually enjoying life.

The Café on the Corner is a microsm of Dover. It is a big place, but not so big that it feels cold. Windows wrap around the whole place so you can see the entire corner it takes its name from. It isn't that pretty a view, but the openness is nice. And you can see Baldface Books acrosss the street on the other corner. Used bookstore fans, Dover is worth a special trip just for Baldface books! There are rooms and rooms of books. If I hadn't already gone broke on the bookstores in Portland, I would have done it here! They also have CDs and a great vinyl selection, too. So you can pick up something good to read, then go hang in the big, comfy chairs at the Café.

The coffee at the Café made me happy. Of these past hundred-odd cups the coffee here was the best. The coffee was Rocket Fuel, from Port City Coffee Roasters out of Portsmouth (Port City, The Friendly Toast, and Jumpgate, a scifi/game/comic book store are Portsmouth's three redeeming qualities). Port City, as I've said before, is the best coffee roaster I know of within a day's drive. It was a rich blend, deep and authoritative without being agressive, like a kettle drum in an orchestra.

Suprisingly, the coffee here is better than at Port City's own café. Maybe it is the Dover water, or maybe their equipment is better, or maybe it is just the atmosphere. The café is very welcoming. You don't have to be trendy or beautiful (or a young urban professional) to set foot in there. While we were there, a woman hung out with her two kids. In the window seat a grandmother chatted with her granddaughter. College kids lounged in the overstuffed chairs and did their homework. It was a variety of people you just don't see at the cafés in Portsmouth or Portland, for that matter. It was a good place to end our vacation with, and a perfect cup of coffee for the last cup in this blog.

Cup 104: double capuccino at Arabica

2005-03-07T12:35:00.000-05:00

double capuccino at Arabica
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: Arabica, Portland, ME
When: 12:30 pm, March 7 2005
Who: Jessica Brakeley, Lisa O'Quinn
Coffee: Arabica's Capuccino
Mood: content

I usually don't do capuccino. Despite what most people think, the process used to make espresso extracts less caffiene from the beans than coffee does, so really, you're paying more and getting less. But Arabica's coffee, well I make an exception there, because their capuccino is a work of art. It is has a swirly sensuality that would get Georgia O'Keefe excited. The ones made by the owner are truly beautiful, to the point where I almost hate to drink them and make that beauty go away.

I don't know if Arabica is still run by the original people, but I was very impressed by them. I wish I knew their names so I could give them credit. I was a regular when they first opened, so I know the look and feel of the place was all theirs, not something they hired someone to create for them. The tables, for example, were built from old barn boards because they were free. Instead of covering up the bare brick walls, they scrubbed them down. The place has a beautiful, warm, rustic feel to it, and I'm so impressed that it came from creative problem solving. For a while Arabica was open for reduced hours. The owner couldn't find staff that he thought was good enough. Most places would have been content with just any warm body keeping the place open, but he didn't want to compromise the quality.

Again, I am missing... well, not the city, exactly. I don't think I'd want to live in Portland again. I don't miss the traffic, or the crime. I remember the first week I moved to Portland. I put a door mat in the hallway outside the door of my second-story apartment. It said WELCOME in big, flowery letters. Someone stole it. But I miss being able to go to a used bookstore and finding so many books I want that I feel overwhelmed, as opposed to searching in vain for something to buy. I miss cafés. I miss having options of breakfast places.

We were hanging out at Arabica, in the window seat. I had a remarkably awkward moment where I'm sitting, hoping that Jessie isn't noticing me checking out that hot chick walking by, and then realizing that the hot chick is actually my best friend's wife. Double-secret-guilt-whammy!

cup 103: monday breakfast at the Friendship

2005-03-07T10:33:00.000-05:00

monday breakfast at the Friendship
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: The Friendship Café, Portland, ME
When: 10 am, March 7, 2005
Who: Jessica Brakeley
Coffee: unknown
Mood: relaxed

In 1998, Portland, Maine had the highest per capita of both lawyers and restaurants in the USA. I don't know if this still holds true, but I do know that Portland has one heck of a lot of places to dine. That's one thing I miss most about Portland. What I don't get, though, is why everything is closed on Monday. Our first choice for breakfast was The Porthole, currently my favorite breakfast spot in the city. The Porthole is out on a wharf and the walk to the front door is skanky, filthy and has an air of danger... or is that just rotting fish? The Porthole used to be a depressing mediocre diner, but it is now under new management and has new cooks. You can actually get an omelette with brie and portabello mushrooms there. The food and service are consistantly great, but the city doesn't seem to have discovered how much the place has changed, so you can usually get a table without a wait. Just not on Mondays.

Fortunately, The Friendship Café is open Mondays. The Friendship is a great restaurant on Congress, but I always forget about it since it is past all the useful things on Congress. I do it a disservice. The Friendship has never let me down. The food is always good, and they seem to want to make the "Friendship" part mean something. At least, the waitresses seem to be a degree friendlier than most other restaurants, a genuine friendly, not the "I'm being nice to get a better tip," friendly. The Friendship is a clean, well-lighted place, always bright and cheerful, even in this winter's bitter cold dreariness. Today's breakfast was an asparagus omelette with green coconut curry sauce. I never would have thought to make anything like it, so it was an exotic twist to an old standard. I think the chef might have felt a little insecure about it, because I heard the waitress saying to her, "He really likes the omelette a whole lot." Props to the waitress for knowing the vanishing art of proper coffee timing. Too often, and you're an interrupting nuisance. Not often enough, and the diner winds up drinking cold dregs. You have to be able to sense when there's about half a cup left, and be there to refil it. This keeps the coffee at optimum drinking temperature throughout the meal.

Today is a grand day in Portland because Jessie and I have nowhere to be, no plans to do anything but wander around and spend money and do the touristy thing in a city we both used to live in.

Cup 102: Sunday Night at the Friendly Toast

2005-03-06T18:31:00.000-05:00

sunday night at the Friendly Toast
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: The Friendly Toast, Portsmouth NH
When: Sunday, March 6, 5 pm
Who: Matt & Mike Curti
Coffee: unknown
Mood: Happy

I am bruised and sore from sledding. You know, sledding just didn't seem this self-abusive the last time I went. That was 25 or so years ago and an hundred pounds lighter, though. It was still fun after all these years, though! The afternoon trip to Portland didn't pan out. My friends never called me back. I'd be upset about that, but it means I get to have boys night out with my favorite brother-in-law and favorite nephew. Of course, they are my only brother-in law and nephew, but I'm sure they'd still be my favorites even if I had dozens of them. I'm always happy that my sister married such a great guy, and I couldn't ask for a cooler nephew. Caritha and Sofia didn't want to go out to dinner, so it was just us men. Two of my favorite people at my favorite restaurant!

A word about The Friendly Toast. You are going to think I'm making this up, but I swear it is true. My friend Matt Jasper was married to Melissa Jasper. The marriage kind of fell apart when Melissa, as Matt put it, "ran off with the 6 foot tall lesbian guitarist from the band Motorpussy." They divorced. She kept the name Jasper. Matt remarried to Beatrice Weathersby, a Costa Rican circus performer who co-authored medical textbooks with her dad even though she dropped out of high school. Melissa and Beatrice became friends while they were working at the Salvation Army in Dover, NH. They took home all the best artifacts from the Salvation Army. Bizzarre or kitschy paintings, old advertisements, weird sculptures and so on. Then Melissa and Beatrice opened a restaurant and decorated it with all the stuff they'd been saving. Matt washed dishes. It moved a couple of times, settling in downtown Portsmouth. The location may have changed, but the eccentricity only increased. Now it is the size of small warehouse, and its walls are a museum of bad art and design mayhem. A non-nostalgic look back at a past many would just as soon forget, but others find beautiful and hip. Like pointy-tipped eyeglasses and Russ Meyer movies. Beatrice sold her half of the restaurant to Melissa. Melissa remarried, to a man. He changed his last name to Jasper...

The Friendly Toast could probably get by just on the decor, but that is just where it starts. The menu is vast, containing a hundred or more items ranging from ordinary to exotic to things you might eat on a dare, if your honor was on the line, or if you were really, really drunk. There is a wonderful variety of vegetarian items, and even the non-vegetarian items you can usually get with meat substitute. I've never been dissappointed by anything I've eaten there, and I've eaten there a whole lot. And all the food comes in astonishing quantities. And the toast? Yes, it is friendly. Fresh baked just for them, usually about two inches thick and fried in butter. Again, it ranges from the mundane white and wheat, to the exotic, like the chipotle chili and cheddar bread I had this evening.

Mike got egg-in-a-hole. Egg-in-a-hole is fun. Take a slice of bread and a glass. Mash the glass, top-down into the bread to cut out a circle from the middle of the bread. Then put it in a frying pan, drop an egg into the whole, and fry it up! Matt had the Almond Joy pancake. Chocolate chips, coconut, almonds in a pancake that put the "cake" back in pancake. I got the Peasant Breakfast. Not sure why it is called that. It was two piles of food on a plate. The first was tofu, carrots, corn, rice, and other fun, and the second was black beans, spinach and other things I can't remember right now, but it was wonderul and delicious and I ate way more than I should have and enjoyed every minute of it.

I usually don't drink coffee that late into the evening, but I still had a drive ahead of me. The Friendly Toast has a distinct coffee. Not sure where they get it from. There is a charred harshness to it that is not unpleasant yet is uniquely Friendly Toast.

Matt wants to go there regularly. He makes me such a proud uncle! He loves the food and the atmosphere. It was the first time out with just da boyz. I guess that is one advantages to Matt and Sofie getting older. They can start doing things without each other and without both parents and have it be okay.

This time away from Orono has been good for me. I haven't felt depressed at all since I got out of town.

cup 101: pinewood derby

2005-03-06T08:32:00.000-05:00

pinewood derby
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: Curti residence, Kittery, Maine
When: 8;30 am March 6, 2005
Who: Matt, Sofia, Caritha & Mike Curti
Coffee: Avalon Organic
Mood: jovial

So much to do today! Matt has to get ready for the Pinewood Derby. We've got games to play on the Nintendo DS. We're going sledding, and I have to leave for Portland in the afternoon... better fuel up for a strenuous day!

The coffee is Avalon Organic, which my sister got from me during her last trip home. She was quite mortified when I publicly dissed her coffee during my last trip, so she said she'd keep the Avalon Organic on hand so I'd have coffee that I couldn't complain about. Of course now she's probably pulling the old bait-and-switch on me, and is serving me Market Basket coffee and telling me it is the coffee I gave her, just to get revenge...

cup 100: Little Dog

2005-03-05T16:41:00.000-05:00

little dog
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: Little Dog, Brunswick, ME
When: 4:00 pm, March 5, 2005
Who: the regulars
Coffee: Little Dog's house blend (from Coffee by Design)
Mood: nostalgic

The Bohemian is gone. Too bad. I used to detour there on my way from Kittery to Orono because the coffee was really good and it had the shabby coolness of a West Coast coffee shop. Fortunately just up the block Little Dog has opened. It's much bigger than the Bohemian, and it has that East Coast fastidiousness, but the coffee is good and they have big comfy chairs and couches, and plenty of tables. It appears to be "the spot" in Brunswick. The place was absolutely packed! I was able to snag the last overstuffed chair.

They serve coffee from Coffee by Design. Times have changed! When I lived in Portland, Coffee by Design was this long, narrow hallway of a coffee shop where the Maine College of Art students hung out. I was a regular, it being a five minute walk from my apartment. Now it appears they are moving up in the world and are selling their own blends of coffee to other shops. Good for them. I just hope they don't go the way of Green Mountain. If I start seeing Coffee by Design in Mobil stations, I'll know we're in trouble. For now, though, Coffee by Design is as good as ever.

Sitting in my big, comfy, purple, overstuffed chair I realize something. I miss this. I miss being able to go to a coffee shop and sit, hang out, read, people watch. In Orono there is nowhere to go and just be, and have a friend happen to be walking by and stop and chat. Here there is no "just happened to come across so-and-so." You have to plan every social encounter. It makes me furious to think that there were places like that on campus, but the University destroyed them.

These are important realizations as I try to decide my next move. Within the next few months we have to decide whether to stay in Orono or move to a different town. The closest town to Orono that has a coffee shop is Belfast. Maybe it is time for a change?

(I was going to stop at 100, but that would leave me in the middle of a trip, so I'll stop when I head back to Orono)

cup 99: jim

2005-03-05T12:40:00.000-05:00

jim
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: Jim Moulton's, Bodoinham, ME
When: noon, March 5, 2005
Who: Jim Moulton
Coffee: unknown
mood: thoughtful

Jim appreciates a good cup of coffee, even if he isn't a heavy coffee drinker. He uses that odd coffee filter that is sort of the autodrip filter shape only it sits on top of the mug. They make fine coffee, but I don't usually use them. Like Bing says, don't mess with Mr. Inbetween, and those are midway between French presses and ADCMs.

Spending time with Jim gives me a headache, but not in a bad way. It isn't often I get to talk about my Really Big Ideas with someone who understands and agrees with me. We've both devoted years of our lives to researching learning technologies, educational reform, and constructionist learning theory. When I talk with most people about such things, the conversation usually gets to the point of me introducing the ideas and explaining why they are important, but with Jim I'm able to start where all these years of thought have led me. It is always very exciting.

The other exciting thing about conversations with Jim. Usually conversations about the problems of the world are never more than just that. With Jim it is more like, okay, we're agreed that this is a problem. What are we going to do to fix it? And then we come up with a plan that is so crazy it just might work. Today was no exception!

Cup 98: On the Road Again

2005-03-05T09:40:00.000-05:00

sat
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: Orono
When: 9 am, March 5, 2005
Who: Dot & Dash
Coffee: Port City Capone
Mood: exhausted

Why oh why did I think it was a good idea to be in Bodoinham at 11 am? Got back around 7 Friday night, had a couple of hours to veg out to SciFi channel's friday night lineup, then up early to get ready to go. If it was just a trip to Brunswick it wouldn't be such a big deal, but this was just the start. Bodoinham to Brunswick to Kittery saturday, Kittery to Cape Elizabeth Sunday, Cape Elizabeth to Dover to Orono on tuesday... the plants needed watering, the cats needed loving, the dishes needed washing, and life in general had to be put in enough order to leave it alone for a few days since Jessie was already down south at an art educator's conference.

Of course I was late. Hopefully Jim wouldn't hate me too much for that. It was a pot of coffee this morning, from the ADCM. Quitting coffee soon, so I'm overindulging and also I want to be alert for the drive south. Heading east the traffic gets thinner and thinner and you only need to be half-awake. South of here, though, the traffic thickens, the drivers get more aggressive and less considerate, there are more streets, more options, more lanes... I was used to it once, but now I've been in the quiet, laid back life for too long and it all seems big and scary and I get anxious whenever I head south.

Cup 97: malaise

2005-03-04T07:39:00.000-05:00

fri
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: Pembroke Elementary
When: 7:30 am, March 5, 2005
Who: everybody! everybody!
Coffee: Folgers
Mood: anxious

I skipped the Mobil station with its marvy coffee lids this morning. I had two Nature Valley Granola bars (Marden's had store display-sized boxes on sale for a couple bucks) in my pocket for breakfast, so I figured early in the morning the coffee at the school would be drinkable enough. It was.

There's a definate malaise about the school today. Fascinating that kids can pick up on things even if they don't know what is causing it. For the first time I actually had kids out to get me. There are always kids who are obnoxious jerks, but that is just their nature, and as annoying as it is, I don't take it personally. But today I had kids who were deliberately trying to test my limits and make me angry. Paula's leaving is part of it. A number of the teachers left early to go to a veteran teacher's funeral, too. Not easy to teach when you're burying a friend. The kids pick up on that stuff. This was the least enjoyable day I've ever spent in Pembroke.

Cup 96: Where's Your Indignation?

2005-03-03T07:38:00.000-05:00

thurs
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: from Orono to Pembroke
When: March 3, 2005
Who: me
Coffee: Port City Capone (ADC)
Mood: angry

I am on a bender. This blog will conclude on Tuesday, after the hundred-ish cup of coffee (actually, the hundredth would be tomorrow, but I'll be travelling, so I figure I'll just go until I'm back from vacation). So today I made a big pot of coffee in the ADCM and I'll be drinking as much as I can for the "grand finale" and then starting my next blog, Cold Turkey, where I pause from drinking coffee completely and write about withdrawal. It isn't going to be permanent, though. Long enough so that the caffiene starts effecting me again. So today I have a really gigantic mug of coffee sitting beside me on the drive in, oh, and that picture? That isn't a coffee mug. It is a soup bowl...

But anyway, there's something I need to rant about for a minute. Paula Smith, principal at Pembroke, is leaving. She's retiring early, which will mean about a 10% reduction in the amount she'll be making when she retires. This is bad. You know, I don't need to drive two hours to find a school to consult to. I can find places much closer, but I make the drive because Paula is principal in Pembroke. She is regretably unique among school administrators in that her priority is to create the best learning environment possible for the students, and to give the teachers the support they need to make that possible. With Paula, I can explain what technology the school needs and she'll find the money for it. Dealings with other administrators are not so productive. Typically, they'll say something like, "Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Do up a proposal and get me an invoice and I'll bring it up before the board..." and I'll do that and never hear about it again. In Pembroke, though, I can make things happen. Educational consultants are often hired by administrators to let them feel like they are doing something. It is sad, but my fees are the same whether my recommendations get implemented or not. But you know, I am in this because I want to make a positive difference, and in Pembroke I can see that happen. That is primarily because of Paula.

But Paula is leaving, and one of the reasons is that she's being forced to enforce State and National standards that actually prevent teachers from teaching. Students in Maine spend weeks out of the year taking standardized tests. This flies in the face of all recent research into education that shows that standardized tests are not an accurate assessment of what a student has learned. Only very shallow level thinking can be measured in a standardized test. There are many other flaws, but all that aside, ask yourself what you've observed in your own life. I'm operating on the assumption here that schools are supposed to be preparing kids for the real world. How many times in your life outside of school has your success on anything you've done been based on taking a standardized test? Other than a Cosmo quiz, that is? And yet schools are punished if their students don't perform well on these pointless tests. Schools are told "Don't teach to the tests" and then are punished if they don't. What do you think is going to happen? So educational time, instead of being spent preparing for life is being spent preparing for the tests. Meanwhile, veteran teachers are being asked to prove in more and more different ways that they've been doing what they've been doing for years. So much time is being spent proving that teaching and learning is happening that there's no time any real learning to happen. Innovation and creativity in teaching is being stifled. If it doesn't help students on the MEA or meet the Learning Results or No Child Left Behind it doesn't get taught.

As principal, Paula is being asked to make sure her teachers comply with all these new standards. She has to force her school to use educationally unsound practices, and to increase the amount of work and stress in her teacher's lives without giving them any more pay. For many administrators, this wouldn't be a problem. These are the administrators who don't know anything about education and who don't care about their teachers. But Paula cares and she knows what good education is. So she's getting out.

I'm sure she's not the first. She won't be the last. In Maine and in the rest of the country, public education is becoming a horrible place to be for any teacher who cares about their students and who knows anything about educational best practice. We're going to lose all our best teachers: those who care about their students and want what is best for them. What we'll be left with are teachers for whom teaching is just a job. Given that Maine ranks 47th in the nation in starting teacher salary, subtract those who are teaching because they are teaching out of love and a desire to create a positive change in the world, and you're left with those who can't get a job anywhere else. Just the kind of person you want teaching your children and influencing the future of the state!

It doesn't have to be this way. It got this way through the best of intentions. The legislature realized that Maine's schools needed to be improved and tried to do something about it. Unfortunately, their solution (increase testing, increase standards) is making things worse, and preventing other solutions from happening. These aren't bad people, though. Just uninformed. If we want something better for our kids and for the future of our state, though, we parents, teachers and students need to school them. The time to do that is now, though, before we lose all Paula Smiths from the school system and we're left with educators who are just going through the motions and collecting a paycheck.

cup 95: glow

2005-03-02T13:17:00.000-05:00

glow
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: my office
When: 6:30 am, March 2, 2005
Who: Dot
Coffee: Avalon Organic Italian Roast
Mood: mundane

I switched to the macro lens so I could get way close to the coffee. I was trying to capture the oil slick on the surface of the coffee. You don't get this when you use a paper filter, so, IMHO, an essential part of the coffee gets lost then. So I recommend a gold filter, or a French press. Even a gold filter will still strain out some of the essential coffee-ness, so a French Press is really the only way to get the full-on coffee experience. I was almost dipping the lens in the coffee, but before I could snap the shot, the lens fogged up. I couldn't get the shot I wanted, but the fog on the lens made everything beautiful and glowy and romantic. Now I'm thinking maybe I should carry hot coffee with me wherever I go, and take every picture this way. It certainly would make the world a lot prettier! And I could call it my coffee filter!

cup 94: dash

2005-03-01T13:06:00.000-05:00

dash
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: my office
When: 8 am, March 1, 2005
Who: Dash
Coffee: Avalon Organic Italian Roast
Mood: humdrum

Dash is usually Jessie's cat, but she decided she wanted to get in on the act today and got all cozy beside my computer.

In an effort to brew the perfect cup of coffee I picked up a thermometer at Marden's for 88 cents this weekend. According to the SCAA, the Specialty Coffee Association of America, the ideal cup of coffee is brewed at 96Â° C. So I got my water up to that temperature before I poured it into the French press. I really couldn't detect any difference, though. Maybe their standard just applies to ADC makers. Or maybe I need to warm the press first and insulate it, since immediately the temperature of the coffee dropped to 80-some degrees. Oh well, more investigation is necessary. I need to find a scale, now. The SCAA also requires a ratio of 64 ounces water to 3.25 to 4.25 ounces of cofffee. Time for another trip to Marden's!

Cup 93: pay attention to me!

2005-02-28T11:21:00.000-05:00

pay attention to me!
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: my office, Orono, ME
When: 10 am Feb 28
Who: Dot
Coffee: Port City Capone
Mood: groggy

Coffee with the computer today. Vacation is here, Jessie's headed south and I have the place to myself. Paralyzed by this wide open space of unprogrammed time! Dot decided she wasn't getting nearly enough attention, so she got up off her perch beside the computer, got up and took a walk on my laptop. She perched right there on the keys, right between me and the screen.

Cup 92: with my feet up

2005-02-27T17:06:00.000-05:00

feet
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: Livingroom, Orono
When: 8 am, Feb 27
Who: Dot
Coffee: Port City Capone
Mood: content

Welcoming sunday with quiet ease. Dot is hanging out under the tree. Dash is still curled up with Jessie. TiVo's caught new episodes of Ghost in the Shell and Fullmetal Alchemist for me. A perfect morning!

Cups 90 & 91: grilled cheese at the friar's

2005-02-26T13:36:00.000-05:00

grilled cheese at the friar's
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: the Friar's Bakehouse
When: noon, Feb 26, 2005
Who: Jessie
Coffee: unknown

Cup 89: not enough coffee in the world...

2005-02-25T12:55:00.000-05:00

ring 2
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

where: home, Orono
when: Friday, Feb 25
who: dot & dash
coffee: Avalon organic Italian Roast
mood: down

Today the depression is the worst it's been all winter. Depression is like a living thing. I read a book a long time ago, Colin Wilson's The Mind Parasites. I remember not liking it very much at the time, but maybe I should give it another read. The Mind Parasites were alien beings that lived in our minds and afflicted us with things like depression in order to keep us from ever rising to a level where we might defeat them. Today I can almost believe that is true. There are things you can do to fight depression. Diet, exercise, socializing, walks in the sunlight... all the things you're least likely to want to do when you're depressed. Instead you just want to go sit in a dark corner, alone, eating chocolate and other comfort food... all the things that are going to guarantee that the depression persists. There's other things too. Low self-esteem comes and paranoia come with depression too, as does low energy and lack of focus. What is a sure boost to self-esteem? Getting things accomplished. What is going to happen with low energy and no focus? Nothing. I'm sitting in front of the computer for hours at a time, only to discover I haven't done a thing, and I have no idea where the time went. And the lack of getting things done contributes to the paranoia, because I'm all to aware of the responsibilities I have that I'm not meeting... and so on. Depression really does seem like a living thing, doing what it needs to to perpetuate itself.

Depression makes the coffee stop working. When the depression isn't here that cup in the morning gives me that extra boost to shake off the sleep and get focused on the challenges of the day. When the depression is here there just isn't enough coffee in the world to clear my head, make me feel motivated and directed. It is like this thick, viscous substance has coated my brain and is squeezing my heart, and I try to drink more, to make it go away, but it doesn't.

cup 88: battle royale

2005-02-24T11:34:00.000-05:00

royale
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

where: Orono, livingroom
when: 8am, Feb 24, 2005
who: Dot & Dash
coffee: Avalon Organic Italian Roast
mood: tense

The book is Battle Royale by Koushun Takami, and on this, a day of "vacation" I am lounging around drinking coffee. The book is gripping, to say the least. The premise is simple. 42 middle-schoolers are put on an island and forced to kill each other until only one remains. Reading it is like, well, have you ever seen the old style fans with the metal blades and the screens that have such wide open gaps that you can fit your whole hand through it? And there's something about it that makes you want to stick your hand in, just to see if it really would hurt, or would really cut your fingers off. You know it would, but it is just hard to believe. The fan at full speed is just a blur, a solid disk, not blades at all... Open the book is like sticking your hand in a fan and believing it isn't going to hurt. You know that everyone you care about is going to die, but you have to keep reading. The first few are like potato chips. None of the characters who die have been around long enough to really care about, and the descriptions of their violent deaths are graphic and entertaining. I found myself saying, "Okay, I'll just read until the next kid dies, and then I'll get busy." But then after the first 20 or so kids die, I'm at a point where it is painful to continue, where there are only 2 kids left who I actually want to see dead, and the rest I want to see miraculously escape and live happily ever after. That's not going to happen, though.

It certainly isn't a book I'd recommend to just anybody, but if you like your entertainment disturbing and thought provoking, a la A Clockwork Orange and Lord of the Flies, this book fits the bill. Though neither of those can hold a candle to the grand guignol of Battle Royale.

Cup 87: vacation

2005-02-23T22:19:00.000-05:00

wed
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

where: Orono, Lengyl Lab
when: 10:30 am, Feb 23, 2005
who: a student
coffee: Green Mountain
mood: relieved

cup 86: free Mojtaba and Arash

2005-02-22T15:21:00.000-05:00

free Mojtaba and Arash
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

where: my office, Orono, Maine
when: Feb 22, 10 am, 2005
who: just me
coffee: Avalon Organic Italian Roast
mood: pensive

The newly-formed Comittee to Protect Bloggers is having their first "action" today, Free Arash and Motjaba day. While I'm happily, freely drinking my coffee, Arash and Motjaba, two Iranian bloggers are imprisoned for expressing their views on their blogs. Please take a moment to visit the committee's site, and if you have a blog, put up a link and a banner.

cup 85: afterwards

2005-02-21T22:37:00.000-05:00

mon
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

where: Orono, Mom's kitchen
when: 10:30 am, Feb 21, 2005
who: me
coffee: Green Mountain Coffee
mood: tired

cup 84: stained

2005-02-21T06:59:00.000-05:00

stained
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

where: Orono
when: 6am, Feb 21, 2005
who: me
coffee: Avalon Organic Italian Roast
mood: groggy

cup 83: family visit continues

2005-02-20T07:39:00.000-05:00

sun
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

where: Orono, Mom's kitchen
when: 8am, Feb 20, 2005
who: Ethel LeClair, Caritha Curti, (and sometimes Sofia and Matthew Curti
coffee: Mountain Grown Folgers

cup 82: family visit

2005-02-19T08:39:00.000-05:00

sat
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

where: Orono, Mom's kitchen
when: 8am, Feb 19, 2005
who: Ethel LeClair, Caritha Curti, (and sometimes Sofia and Matthew Curti
coffee: Mountain Grown Folgers

cup 81: coffee orifice

2005-02-18T08:36:00.000-05:00

fri
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: Pembroke Elementary
When: 8:30 am Feb 18, 2005
Who: scads of kids
Coffee: New England Coffee Roasters Breakfast Blend
Mood: uninspired

Look at the lid on this cup. It is the usual not-quite-horrible coffee I get in Pembroke. The coffee isn't great, but the lid is a masterpiece of modern engineering! Years ago Apple computer came out with a series of laptops that were so well designed that they put all other laptops to shame. The design was so complex, however, that Apple needed to use a Cray supercomputer to model the case. This lid is way more complex than the PowerBook case, though! It is kinda cool to be living at a point in history where such a marvel of technology can be as common as a cup of coffee. Now that personal computers are now more powerful than early 90's supercomputers, how many more marvels will we see?

The lid has a plug, for starters. It is on a tab that extrudes from the center of the cup. You don't have to rip any plastic off the lid in order to drink the coffee. You just fold it back and push it against the back of the lid where there is a slot that pinches the tab and holds it reliably. But you can reclose it! That is so cool! How many coffee lids do you ever see on disposable cups that you can completely reclose? That part is cool, but what really excites me is the curves. This lid is all about the curves. I never realized just how uncomfortable the sharp edges make a coffee cup until I drank coffee from a cup that was all curves. This cup is designed in such a way that the mouth comes in contact with nothing but curves. It is unsettling at first. It gives it a much more organic feel than a plastic lid has a right to have, as if this were some bioengineered organ grown to excrete coffee. But there's also something very sensual about it at the same time, like a nipple designed for adults to drink from instead of babies. What other wonders does modern technology have in store for us? I can't wait to find out!

Cup 80: the caffiene makes me irritable

2005-02-17T10:56:00.000-05:00

thurs
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: Pembroke Elementary
When: 10 am Feb 17, 2005
Who: many middleschoolers
Coffee: Green Mountain (tepid, purchased back in Orono
Mood: irate

Coffee began its seduction long before I started drinking. I remember a commercial. One woman snaps at her friend and then apologizes, claiming that her doctor says it's too much caffiene. Her friend recommends she switch to decaf. I was an extremely passive kid who never spoke his mind when he was upset, and just endured quietly, so this made coffee seem like some wonderful elixer that enabled one to speak one's mind.

Must be too much caffiene. By the time I made it to Pembroke I was ready to bite somebody's head off. Unfortunately, the target of my irritation was just too big. My jaws don't open that wide.

It's a long drive to Pembroke and I had a long time to think about what I'd read that morning. Iraqi ex-pats living in Australia are putting pressure on the US Govt. to put a stop to the web site Under Mars. Under Mars is a website that lets soldiers in Iraq post pictures that they've taken. Some of them are extremely graphic images of war atrocities that should be offensive to every thinking & feeling human who sees them. Many of these have stupid captions ut there by the soldiers who post them, like, "In need of plastic surgery" beneath a horribly mutilated corpse.

I read the comments on Iraqi blogs about the photos. It all made me angry, made me want to scream "A plague on both your houses!" A typical Iraqi response was that Allah would punish all the Americans, and the same thing would happen to them. Another response was to characterize all Americans based on the idiot soldier who posted the pictures making fun of mutilated Iraqi corpses. A typical American response was, well, bad things happen in war, but isn't it a small price to pay for freedom and democracy? They all make me so angry. How many Americans would you have to kill to bring those dead Iraqis back to life? How many of the 4000 people who died on 9-11 have been brought back to life by sacrificing 100,000 Iraqis? Why is the response to an atrocity always to perpetrate another atrocity?

And I started thinking about the Australian Iraqi's and their condemnation of Under Mars. They just don't understand how important a site like Under Mars is to them. Here in America we've been fed a cleaned and polished version of the war. There are no Iraqi death counts on American television, no images of death or dismemberment or other horrors of war. It makes it so easy to ignore that way, and easier to support. Under Mars is one of the few places where people in the US can actually see what is going on. And if they see it, maybe they will react in horror and be appalled at what their country has done, and do something to try to change it.

But then I realized how foolish it was of my to think this.

Times have changed. Caring is a luxury in this country. The current generation works 140 hours a year more than the previous one and makes less money doing it. That's almost a whole working month less to spend on anything but working. I think a typical American would be outraged if they saw the pictures on Under Mars (I hope so, anyway) but I also think a typical American is overworked and underpaid and even if they realize that the nightly news is just propaganda, they probably don't have the time or the resources to get on the Internet and find out what is really going on. Even if they did, what are they going to do with that information? Protesting is a luxury item also. It takes time and money, two things most Americans have in short supply. Some have called Iraq another Viet Nam. I don't think this is accurate. Back then the news media did a better job informing the public, and the public had more time and energy with which to act on that information. Now we have a government-censored news media, and people with far less time who are on average poorer than the previous generation.

It is all too big. I can't see any way to turn the situation around. I just want to scream. Or maybe its just the caffiene makes me irritable.

Cup 79: dazed and confused

2005-02-17T06:46:00.000-05:00

thursday
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

where: my office, Orono
when: :45 am, Feb 17
who: just me
coffee: Port City Capone
mood: groggy

6:45. I should have been on the road at 6 am, but I just can't seem to wake up. Feeling so groggy I'm afraid to drive. I have no idea why. This body just isn't cooperating. I pour more coffee into it but the haze won't leave.

cup 78: no food or drink in the lab

2005-02-17T06:41:00.000-05:00

lab
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

where: Lengyl Lab, University of Maine, Orono
when: 8 am Feb 16, 2005
who: a dozen students
coffee: Green Mountain
mood: energetic

There's no food or drink allowed in the lab. I hate this rule. I mean, it isn't like it'll hurt anything, well, unless you do something really stupid with your drink, and...

Call for Suggestions

2005-02-16T22:07:00.000-05:00

This experiment will soon be drawing to a close. Only 23 cups of coffee left! It started as a way to teach myself more about blogging as an artform. Now I'm pondering what to do next. The important elements are repetition, location, time, photography and narrative. What are projects that these things lend themselves to? What shall I do next? What do you think, dear reader? Please comment me up some ideas!

Cup 77: out the door

2005-02-16T16:42:00.001-05:00

hat
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: home, Orono, ME
When; Feb 16, 7:30 am
Who: Jessie, Dot & Dash
Coffee: Port City Capone
Mood: busy

It is the usual rush around & get everything together for class because I've overslept and instead of enjoying my morning cup of coffee it is something I'm going to carry from room to room and spill it on everything. Only this morning there's a twist. Jessie is awake. Her car is broken again. It is a Toyota and it is just a baby. Hasn't even passed 300,000 miles yet, but Jessie's car just keeps breaking. I've never seen a Toyota have so many problems. So Jessie's annoyed and frustrated and of course I'm annoyed and frustrated because of it, and she has to get up much earlier than she wants to in order to drive me to class so she can have the car for the rest of the day. I don't particularly mind because it gives me a reason to walk! But I'm bummed for Jessie. Like any poor college student needs another $300 car repair bill!

cup 77: sick again

2005-02-16T15:30:00.000-05:00

where: on the couch, Orono ME
when: 9 am Feb 15 2005
who: me & occasionally Dot & Dash
coffee: Maine Roaster's Capone
mood: sick

Coffee was a remote hope that the headache was just the usual caffeine withdrawals but it wasn't. Spent the whole day on the couch watching TV and wishing I didn't feel like crap.

interlude: Balzac

2005-02-14T19:16:00.000-05:00

Coffee falls into your stomach, and straightway there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move like the battalions of the Grand Army of the battlefield, and the battle takes place. Things remembered arrive at full gallop, ensuing to the wind. The light cavalry of comparisons deliver a magnificent deploying charge,the artillery of logic hurry up with their train and ammunition, the shafts of with start up like sharpshooters.Similes arise, the paper is covered with ink; for the struggle commences and is concluded with torrents of black water, just as a battle with powder.

-Hororé de Balzac

cup 76: VR

2005-02-14T10:35:00.000-05:00

Where: Lengyl Lab, University of Maine, Orono
When: 8 am feb 14 2005
Who: dozens of students
Coffee: Green Mountain's Valentine's blend
mood: exploratory

Anyone remember VR? It was going to be so cool! We'd have goggles and body suits and we'd be able to interact in a completely immersive computer environment. Some experts said that the government might have to regulate it like they do psychadelic drugs because it exposed you to an alternate reality. There was a horrible movie, Lawnmower Man, that was a huge success because it happened to have VR in it right when VR was getting popular. There were a couple of TV shows, VR5 and Harsh Realm, that flopped even though the weren't all that bad, because they came out a week later, when VR wasn't news anymore. There is one vestige of the VR hype that remains and is pretty cool and completely underused. It is called Quicktime VR and it is built right into Quictime, so if you can play Quicktime movies on your computer you can watch a Quicktime VR. Quicktime VR stitches together a series of digital photos to create the illusion of navigating in a 3-dimensional space. In the above sample, I used my coffee cup (and yes, I was drinking the coffee while I made the VR). It isn't just an animation. Go ahead, click and drag on it. Try using your shift, control and alt/option keys while you click and drag. They should all do something a little different. In class I plan on using it to archive the student's 3d work, since this can be tricky to include in a portfolio.

cup 75: from chocloate to morphine

2005-02-14T06:17:00.000-05:00

from chocloate to morphine
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: livingroom, Orono, Maine
When, 6 am, Feb 14 2005
Who: just me
Coffee: Maine Roaster's Capone
Mood: inquisitive

I took the morning to read up on my addiction in the book From Chocolate to Morphine by Andrew Weil and Winifred Rosen. Here I learned some fun facts. French author HonorÃ© de Balzac was such a coffee addict that the coffee he drank resembled thick soup and he consumed it in astonishing quantities to spite the stomach cramps it gave him. I learned that J. S. Bach composed the Coffee Cantata around 1732 and it containd great lines like, "Far beyond all other pleasures, rarer than jewels or treasure, sweeter than grape from the vine. Yes! Yes! Greatest of pleasures! Coffee, coffee, how I love its flavor, and if you would win my favor, yes! Yes! let mehave coffee, let me have my coffee strong."

Caffeine isn't the only "active ingredient" in coffee. There are many other stimulant drugs found in coffee. This is probably why only coffee "does it for me" and I can't drink caffeinated soda and get the same effect.

I also learned that nausea and vomiting can accompany a coffee withdrawal in addition to a severe, throbbing vascular headache. Coffee is irritating to the stomach and bladder and it overrides the body's ability to store chemical energy, making one come to rely on coffee for energy.

Aside from the irritation, there are many more damaging things to be addicted to. It isn't going to cause the massive and permanent damage that being addicted to, say, heroin causes.

Dr. Weil might say I'm on my way to a "bad relationship" with coffee. "People with good relationships with drugs can take them or leave them," he says, and I don't feel that leaving coffee is an option. On the other hand, I am aware that coffee is a drug, and have a good idea of what it is doing to my body, so that is a sign of a healthy drug relationship. And it doesn't appear to be harming my body as far as I can tell (another good sign) but the effects of coffee have diminished for me, and I need it in order to have a functional energy level, but it does not stimulate me into a higher energy level as it should. A bad sign.

So, what do I do with this information? Well, I'm not about to give up coffee or even cut down. I am okay with being addicted to it. Maybe that is a sure sign of an "unhealthy drug relationship." Whatever.

cup 74: a valiant attempt

2005-02-13T09:58:00.000-05:00

sunday
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: living room, Orono, ME
When: Sunday, Feb 12, 2005
Who: Dot & Dash
Coffee: Port City Capone
Mood: in pain

I made a valiant attempt to have a lovely Sunday morning. The coffee, the cats, the anime, and nothing to do but relax and savor a moment's quiet. Unfortunately, I woke up thinking every inch of me hurt. I was to be proven wrong, but at the time I didn't know yet. All I knew was that I'd spent hours shoveling the day before. If you've never shoveled snow before you don't realize how much work it is. The snow looks light and fluffy, but it isn't. It is heavy. With so much snow there's no place for it. I had to pile it on top of the snowbanks, which are now taller than I am. So picture doing reps with a 20 to 30 pound weight, lifting it from the floor to above your head. Keep doing this for four hours and more, and you might have some idea of what it felt like waking up this morning. So it sucked to be me just waking up this morning. And then I fell down the stairs.

Dash ran to the stairs when I got up, and looked at me expectantly. This is one of her play positions. I'll throw things up the stairs to her, and she'll bat them back down. How could I refuse her? Unfortunately, I forgot how slippery my feet are when I wake up in the morning. I don't know why. They just are, okay? I can slide across the hardwood floor in my bare feet just as if they were stocking feet, and rugs are slippery as well. And when I stepped on the stairs my feet just kept going and there was nothing I could do to save myself. Dash bolted. Jessie came running, confused and frightened by the loud crash that woke her out of a sound sleep. "It's okay," I said, "I just fell down stairs. Go back to sleep." as if it is something I do regularly.

I'm not going to tempt fate by saying everything hurts. I thought that once before and now I hurt in twice as many places. My neck is all messed up and just holding it up my head is an effort. I made my coffee and settled down on the couch, and the cats came and lay down on top of me and I made a good show of relaxing, enjoying the coffee and watching TV, but really, it hurt just to pick up the cup and turn my head to take a sip.

And now it is snowing again...

cup 73: digging out

2005-02-13T09:33:00.000-05:00

snowbound
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: home, Orono, ME
When: 8:30 AM Feb 12, 2005
Who: me & the snow
Coffee: Port City Capone
Mood: resigned

Luckily I'd spent hours shoveling on Friday. So much snow. It would only take half a day to dig his out. I fueled up on extra strong Port City Capone and a bowl of Vector. Vector is the official cereal of the Canadian Olympic Beach Volleyball Team. I have to go across the border to get it. I figure the Canadian beach volleyball team must be totally hardcore, playing volleyball in their snowsuits and winter boots and all, so their official cereal must be hardcore as well. I wanted to be able to do all the shoveling in one stretch, so

Have you ever seen a couple of feet of snow come down all in one storm? It is pretty mindblowing. A mixture of awe and aw, as in aw crap, now I have to clean this all up.

cup 72: snowbound

2005-02-11T16:27:00.000-05:00

snowbound
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

Where: Home, Orono
When: 8 am, Feb 11
Who: Dot & Dash
Coffee: Port City India Malabar
Mood: awestruck

It never stopped snowing. It just keeps falling and falling. I was up shoveling it before I had my first cup of coffee. I wanted something to look forward to. Not that there is really any point to shoveling when it is snowing this hard still. I brought the snowblower out for this one. I like to shovel by hand usually, but with this much snow... Still, even with the snowblower it is still a task. The snow is deeper than the snowblower is tall, so I can only do a little at a time, back up, do a little more. I clear enough snow away so that if we need to escape, we can. The snow was not only blocking the cars, it was holding the doors to the house shut.

I'm sore and tired from shoveling, but still, when I pause and ignore the pain in the neck that this is going to be to clean up, I am awestruck. The whole state has been cancelled. All the schools are closed, even the University, which never closes for anything. Every even that was scheduled has been postponed. They didn't even pickup the trash today. So there's no traffic, not even the distant sound of it. The snow plows, usually so good about keeping Orono's streets clean, haven't been able to keep up with this onslaught. It is like the world is being erased. The snow clings to everything, burying the cars and streets, turning the trees and houses white, and everything is quieter and quieter and the snow keeps on falling and falling and as it does the world becomes less detailed. Soon it will be a blank page, ready to start again.

cup 71: just in time

2005-02-11T15:59:00.000-05:00

home just in time
Originally uploaded by matt_leclair.

where: pembroke, en route to Orono
when: 7am, Feb 11, 2005
who: just me
coffee: New England Coffee Roasters

The town of Pembroke was dead when I woke up. I left the Rainbow at 7 and the snow was already falling. There'd been a lot of buzz about the coming storm the night before. The forecast said 100% chance of snow for thursday and friday. You just don't see that around here. There's never 100% chance of any sort of weather happening around here. It wasn't really supposed to start until the afternoon, though, so I guess they still got it wrong. I'd planned on grabbing breakfast at Poor Boys, then heading over to the school and working for a few hours before leaving. Even then I didn't know for sure that I'd leave because even when a huge storm is forecast here until it actually starts you really don't know it is going to. But when I left the Rainbow the snow was coming down and no cars were going by, and I went straight to the school instead of going to Poor Boys. The school was dark and locked up tight. They'd cancelled already. These are people who pride themselves on their insanity, er, toughness and ability to cope with whatever comes and their willingness to send their children to school no matter how apocalyptic the weather is.

So now I'm starting to get a little nervous. Still, no cars have gone by. Has something big and terrible happened? What should I do? Go back to the Rainbow and wait out the storm? Attempt to drive back? Two and a half hours on the road. Storms here always come from the southwest, the direction I'd be heading into, so I'd be travelling into worse weather, and I'd be driving through mountains, too. Fortunately, I knew the closer I got to Bangor, the better job they'd do at keeping the roads clean.

I steeled myself. Mom and Jessie and the Kitties would be snowbound unless I were home to dig them out. Plus the boredom of being stranded in a hotel room for two days would be intolerable. So I drove to the Mobil station to get the largest cup of coffee they had and a pair of Little Debbie granola bars for breakfast. It was a no substitute for Poor Boys, but time was of the essence. It was a stressful, white-knuckle kind of drive. The kind where you keep sipping at the coffee cup even though you know its been empty for fifteen minutes, just out of nervous reflex. I was so glad to pull in the yard!