This has been a big week for James!
He said “beep” the other day (but not repeated the feat) and today he decided he wanted to walk.
Grandpa was over and he just started walking. he’s been trying for weeks, but he’s only managed 2 “steps” before collapsing.
Today he just started with 3 steps at a time and worked his way up to crossing the living room.
Jurassic beaver swims into view - Large early mammal was first to get furry. From nature.com
Ever see the cliché ending to virtually every program on the extinction of the dinosaurs where the Tyrannosaurus Rex skull lies in the sand with the mouse-like mammal crawling out its eye socket?
Until now, the fossil record has only yielded small, shrew-like mammals living during the Mesozoic Era (Triassic, Jurassic & Cretaceous periods). The assumption has been that dinosaurs so completely dominated that era mammals were unable to thrive until the following Cenozoic era.
This new find out of China is an amazingly advanced beaver from Jurassic period China.
While this certainly means a re-think of when mammals began their advance towards world-dominance this doesn’t seem as surprising to me. Prior to the Mesozoic, during the Paleozoic, the earth was dominated by creatures known as the Mammal-like reptiles (Therapsids). These were displaced during the Triassic by dinosaurs and apparently gone by the Jurassic, but they are the direct ancestors of mammals. It doesn’t seem that impossible that mammals had more of a head start than previously thought.
The process of fossilization requires being at the right place at the right time, and some places (rivers, seas, oceans) are more conducive than others. Further, those places now have to be exposed. There are certainly far more creatures that did exist than we could ever possibly expect to find.
Technorati Tags: Blog, Paleontology, Science
Many Dino Fossils Could Have Soft Tissue Inside from the National Geographic Society
This is a fascinating report concerning the “fossilized” soft tissue discovered last year.
The traditional view of the fossilization process should result in no soft tissue remaining.
In a nutshell, when a creature dies, it’s soft tissue rots (or is eaten) away, leaving the bones and hard parts, which then get covered and slowly mineral-laden water erodes them replacing them with rock in, essentially, and exact replica so exact that you can see the original growth rings, etc.
Only on the rarest of occasions does soft tissue or skin imprints get fossilized, but they, too, are converted to mineral in the process.
The discovery last year yielded what appears to be un-mineralized soft tissue. After a year’s research, the team has discovered this may not be as rare as previously thought, and if so, the whole process of fossilization may have to be re-thought.
Technorati Tags: Blog, Paleontology, Science
Proud parental moment today:
We were eating a Wendy’s, and we’d been there for about 30 minutes.
There was an elderly couple who had been there since before we arrived. As they got up to leave, the gentleman came over to our table and said, “Excuse me. I just wanted to tell you that you have two of the cutest children I’ve ever seen.”
When did they start making 8-pack sodas?
Is this so they can catch bigger sea otters?
It’s just all wrong, it doesn’t fit naturally in the hand like the 6-pack does. Should you spread your fingers uncomfortably wide and hold using the two outer gaps, or use two adjoining ones and have the whole thing be lop-sided?
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It’s been quite a week. Although I’ve eaten pizza, on average, at least once a week since I was on solid food (that equates to thousands of pizzas, by the way), I don’t think I’ve eaten pizza 7 days in a row since I was in college. (I think my personal collegiate record of pizza 50 days in a row will remain unbroken.)
I think next week will have to be “Salad Week”.
Technorati Tags: Blog, Food, Pizza, Pizza Week
Thursday, my first choice for a pizza to review was Spinato’s, but it was not to be.
Spinato’s (on Glendale) has been taunting me for some time now. I’ve never driven past it at a convenient time to stop and have a pizza, and, as it is tucked away in an oddly positioned strip mall, it’s very easy to miss.
Much to our surprise, when we arrived Thursday around 7:30, it was packed, there were people standing outside waiting to be seated. As we were hauling two small children, we decided to move onto a backup location, but I was intrigued that they had such a good business on a Thursday night.
When I returned home that night, I began researching Spinato’s. I was surprised to learn they’d been in business in Phoenix since 1974 and had four locations around the valley. How they’d remained under my radar is beyond me.
I also discovered an unusual number of online reviews that were all positively glowing, although the fact that many of them singled out spinach pizza as Spinato’s best was worrying.
And so it was with a lot of anticipation that we entered Spinato’s today, just after they opened for the day.
The restaurant is a nice, family-friendly establishment (In fact, the motto “The Family Pizzeria” is emblazoned on all their tables, so it is the market they cater to.)
Their primary pizza is a Chicago-style thin crust, but they also serve a thick (Siciliano) style. I had the lil’ (7″) thin crust pepperoni, my wife had the 7″ thick crust for comparison. Honestly, we didn’t see much difference in the thickness of the two pizzas, although her had a thicker outer edge and had pizza sauce spurted all over the top like a ketchup-colored dessert frosting.
The Pizza
I’m not usually a fan of Chicago style crusts (thick or thin) because they’re usually more like bread and less like a crust. Spinato’s was no exception. The dough was well-cooked, but soft and puffy, but the flavor was good.
The pepperoni was… unnoticeable. Buried underneath the cheese, I completely forgot it was there until I was halfway through the pizza. The cheese was plentiful and good.
The problem with this pizza was the sauce. It’s sweet, really sweet, and therefore overpowering. It was also laid on heavy.
Buried just underneath a solid layer of cheese, this ocean of sauce tended to flow away from where you bit, forming pressured bubbles of hot liquid that, when ruptured spurted geysers towards innocent passersby.
I burned myself when one jet shot out over my hand like a fountain of blood in a Sam Peckinpah movie. I found myself planning my bites with great care to prevent a repeat.
Still, it was a nice place to eat with friendly staff and efficient service. In spite of the sauce, it was still a pretty good pizza. I’ll recommend it to others with the caveat that the sauce is just too sweet for me.
Cost: 7″ Pepperoni = $5.20, cost per square inch = $0.14 (0.135) making it quite expensive. (The next smallest pizza is 12″ at $8.70 or $0.08 per square inch bringing it down to a more reasonable number.)
Conclusion: Recommended (but beware the sauce!)
Spinato’s has 4 locations, but the review was at:
Spinato’s Pizza
1219 E Glendale
Phoenix, Az
Technorati Tags: Blog, Food, Pizza, Pizza Week, Restaurant, Review
My son said his first intelligible word today, both my wife and I heard it clear as a bell.
We each spend a lot of time saying “Mommy” and “Daddy” to him in the hopes he’ll echo it back to us.
So how were we rewarded?
He’s recently taken to holding out his finger so that one of us will hold out our finger and tough them together. When I do that, I first touch his finger and then reach over and touch his nose and say, “beep.”
Today I did that and he looked right at me and said, “beep.”
I suppose an onomatopoeia is a word and we have to count it, don’t we?
Monday, when searching for pizza, I stopped a Mamma Mia Brick Oven Pizza first, but there was nowhere to eat and the smallest pizza was 14″, so I grabbed a menu and planned for a weekday lunch visit from my office.
When I picked up the menu, the restaurant smelled heavenly! (Admittedly, I was hungry at the time, but it really smelled good.)
Their menu says, “Est 1980” but I can only assume this was at another location. I lived in this neighborhood in the late 80’s and I’m sure it was a different restaurant back then. I also note that their menu shows they won best pizza awards in New Jersey.
They do have a few seats and I could have eaten there today, but it’s just too much pizza for one person, so I called in a take-out order. I arrived early to make sure I got it right when it came out of the oven.
While I was waiting, I was really beginning to wonder what the fascination with the Rat Pack and license plates is. This is the second restaurant in two days so adorned.
It was also clear while I was waiting that this was a restaurant that was developing a loyal following. The owner(?) greeted several of the people by name and the dialog with many of the others showed familiarity. It’s certainly been a long time since I’ve heard so many unsolicited testimonials on the taste of the food.
I could hardly wait.
It was 7 minutes from the oven back to my office and onto the plates, which is at the extreme upper limit of acceptable delay for eating. Still, the pizza was plenty hot.
The pizza was New York style and much too droopy in the middle. It had to be eaten with a fork.
Apart from that annoyance, this was a great tasting pizza. It had lots of cheese, pepperoni and sauce and all of it was good.
The crust around the outer edge was good too, but it had an unusual flavor I couldn’t quite place. The nearest thing I could compare the flavor to would be butter, but I don’t think that’s what it was.
The is definitely a shop worth stopping at for a pizza.
Cost: 14″ Pepperoni = $10.45, cost per square inch = $0.07 (0.068)
Mamma Mia Brick Oven Pizza
3937 E. Indian School Rd
Phoenix, Az
Conclusion: Recommended
Technorati Tags: Blog, Food, Pizza, Pizza Week, Restaurant, Review
Pizza Week rolled onto Thursday with an evening visit to Pat’s Pizza Plus.
Pat’s is not much to look at, located as it is in a ramshackle old strip mall on E Glendale Rd. Inside it’s got the same kind of character.
I’ve never understood why some restaurants feel the need to cover their walls with memorabilia from the Rat Pack or Marilyn Monroe? Even more mystifying are old license plates. Pat’s has an abundance of both.
The pizza itself was what I’ve been referring to as “California Style” and was… average and inoffensive.
We had two pizzas at out table, both were a little soggy, one more so than the other.
Crust, pepperoni, cheese and sauce were all… good but unremarkable.
The restaurant was doing a brisk trade for late on Thursday night, so they must be keeping their customers happy. I certainly would have no problem recommended them to anyone in the neighborhood, but I wouldn’t recommend a pilgrimage there.
12″ Pepperoni pizza = $8.74, Cost per Square inch = $0.08 (0.077)
Pat’s Pizza plus
1135 E Glendale Ave
Phoenix, Az
Conclusion: Recommended, but unremarkable
Technorati Tags: Blog, Food, Pizza, Pizza Week, Restaurant, Review