We had a quiet, at-home weekend, after a Friday night trip into D.C. for dinner and a performance by the Capitol Steps–not a staircase, but a group known for poking fun at politics:

Quiet was good for us–the ongoing remodeling is still going on, and on, and on, but the contractors (who have been staying with us since early January) took the weekend off.

The flakes in the post title are not Limbaugh and Coulter (honest!) but the unexpected March snowfall that extended the quiet a bit more.  I’ve cleared out a lot of accumulated paperwork, and have had the chance to move a few projects forward.

I’m doing a presentation at the CSTD Symposium in Halfax next May (c’mon by), and have been using Dokuwiki to gather my material.  (I’d already used MediaWiki, but that seems a bit elaborate for a personal system, so this is a kind of informational science project).

That dinner I mentioned?  I had hanger steak (a great choice).  When we got back home, I was trying to remember how this cut got its name.  It was late, and my computer was off, so I got out my Webster’s Collegiate.

I realized that, although I used to love to meander through the dictionary, I hadn’t taken the book off the shelf in months.  Possibly the only more-neglected reference in my office is the Yellow Pages.  A new edition arrived a while back, and I realized as I tucked it away that its precessor hadn’t been opened since it arrived a year earlier.

All this is to say: hyperlinking has become second nature.  I didn’t like the definition I found in the print dictionary for hanger steak; no explanation of why it has that name.  (Apparently the muscle hangs from the diaphram of the steer.)  Nothing to tell me that the French term is onglet. No easy way to get to a recipe.

And I’ve come to expect these things.

I’m guessing there are implications for people learning on the job, as well.  Even if they’re not having hanger steak.