Quantum Rocketry

• One medium onion, chopped
• One green pepper, ditto
• 2-3 big carrots, or 6-8 baby carrots, also ditto
• 3-4 slices of ham, cut into 1 cm square pieces
• Pasta (I used half a box of rotini)

Cook the onions, peppers, and carrots in a pan over medium heat until the onions start to turn translucent. Throw in the ham and let that cook for a bit. At this point, I put some water on to boil for the pasta. I then added:

• about two teaspoons chopped garlic (though I would have liked sliced fresh garlic)
• about one to one and a half tablespoons parmesan cheese
• a bunch of basil
• some crushed red pepper
• some oregano
• a dash of paprika

Cook that while the water boils. When its time to put the pasta in, throw it in the water and then pour some white cooking wine over the veggies and ham. Turn the heat down to low and simmer until the pasta is done. (I left mine a little al dente.) Drain the pasta, then combine everything, cover it, and shake it all up.

1. Putting together a homemade spaghetti sauce with lots of veggies and spices.
2. Throwing my Outback in low gear and powering up a hill (particularly if said hill leads to Williamstown).
3. The sound of a squash ball hitting the wall.
4. Watching a lathe on automatic feed turn down material.
5. Turning on a radio and instantly hearing a song I’ve been thinking about but haven’t listened to in a long time.
6. Writing useful functions that work properly and integrating them into my codes.
7. Watching a charcoal drawing take shape.

1. Northern Water Snakes
2. Enemy at the Gates
3. Robert Downey, Jr.
4. Book sale
5. Modeling clay
6. Window envelopes
7. Scrambled eggs
8. Nimbus clouds
9. Callithump
10. Twelve-hour airplane flights
11. Five hundred dollars
12. Science fiction

1. Matzah
2. Badminton
3. Sun
4. Dislodged fuse in a glider
5. Ice cream

• delicious
• nutritious
• full of friendly staffers
• inexpensive

• Thick, quiet blankets of pure white on pine trees
• Cross-country skiing on forest paths
• Sledding down the orchard hill
• Hot chocolate and soup
• Crackling fires with board games and books
• Snow forts
• Bundling up (and then unbundling again)
• Snow days!

1. Apple
2. Windows XP Pro SP2
3. Seinfeld
4. Toboggan
5. 0.5mm mechanical pencil
6. Cycloid
7. White envelope
8. Balloon

1. Rockets
2. Hamburgers
3. Paper clips
4. Staplers
5. Propane gas
6. Cheese
7. Oblate planets

1. Glider and tow plane
2. Champagne Supernova
3. Vermont
4. Paycheck
5. Red October
6. Mozzarella pesto burgers
7. Jupiter
8. Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene
9. The Gates of the Desert

• Gasoline: $3.10/gal (at Ithaca-area gas stations)
• Milk: $2.50/gal (at Wegmans – not far off the mark, which is actually $2.79)
• Bottled water: ~$10/gal (assuming $1 per 12-ounce bottle from a vending machine)
• Soda: ~$10/gal (ditto water)
• Coffee: ~$16/gal (assuming ~$2 per 16-ounce cup)
• Human insulin: ~$8,000/gal (assuming about five 10-mL vials are $100 — this turns out to be a gross underestimate now that I’m back in my apartment and have checked my records: the actual figure is more like $25,000/gal!)