Apparently Corning made and sold these 20″ long tubes in the 1970′s. The date on my instruction sheet is June 1977.  Most of the posts say they were really popular and everyone had one “back in the day”. But, since they only sold them for a few years, I’d guess they weren’t really that popular.  It came with a full two year warranty, not that it will do me any good now.

The Bake-a-Round instruction sheet comes with a number of bread recipes (you can download a PDF of the instructions I created below).  It seems like the key is to avoid recipes that are sugary because it will carmelize and stick to the glass, and frankly you’ll never be able to get it out of the tube.  Instead of using an untried recipe I decided to make the white sandwich bread from Reinhart’s Crust and Crumb, because it is one of our favorites. And it has so much butter in it I figured it would slide right out.

I made a 1lb loaf and used the suggested waxpaper technique to load the dough into the tube. My instructions actually have a typo (2″ of wax paper). I looked at instructions from Neufie.com which made more sense (2′ of wax paper). It worked well, but between the buttered tube and the butter in the bread I probably could have simply slipped it in. I gave it a squish from both ends (again, per the instructions), capped the ends with plastic wrap and let it rise. The small 1lb loaf I used never filled the entire tube and in hindsight I could easily have gone with 1 1/2 lbs of dough.

The finished cooked loaf still in the Bake-a-Round:

Getting it out was a little tricky.  You have to maneuver the hot glass tube out of the hot metal holder and then tap the end of the tube with a potholder to get the bread to slide out. I did it though without any help or burned fingers. The bread had a nice even crust all around the loaf.

An unexpected side benefit is the phallic nature of the loaf. I hadn’t noticed, by my mom did!

Gallery with lots of photos including box, tube, bread and instructions.

Download a copy of my instructions as a PDF: Bake-a-Round Instructions (4)

Shortly thereafter she shared it with our friends Jessica and Nick, who by that time had taken Amber’s lead and were also entering their kids’ ages in each photo. So I rewrote the program for them to include their kids. Problem solved! But then they went and had another kid so I added her, too. Problem solved. But then they wanted to add other peoples’ kids as well. To make it more usable I decided to rewrite the program so that the user can add or remove anyone they want. I’m releasing that application as PhotoAge v1.0.0. You can download it below as a compiled Windows executable or as a Python 2.6.x script. Problem solved!

Features:

• Calculates ages in years, months and ages for everyone in the database.
• Automatically fills in today’s date.
• Copy the text (Name: year, month, day) to the clipboard by double-clicking for easy pasting anywhere on your computer.
• You can add or remove as many people as you like using the Add or Remove People window.
• Automatically sort the people you add by Name or Age, ascending or descending.
• No install needed. Just run PhotoAge.exe (or if you have Python 2 installed, PhotoAge.py).
• Full HTML help file.
• Checks to make sure all dates entered are valid. It knows how many days in each month and understands leap years.
• Properly pluralizes labels. Eg, 0 months, 1 month, 2 months.

A few screenshots (it only has a few screens):

To use PhotoAge, just download the file below.  Then unzip the folder and run PhotoAge.exe. You’ll need to add some people and birth dates to the database and then you are all set. For help on getting started, check out the web-based help from the Help menu.

PhotoAge is released under the GPL v3 license. You are free to edit, reuse or redistribute the code under the terms of the license. If you have questions, feature requests (we have a few things in mind for version 1.1 already) or anything else, just leave a comment on this post.

Download PhotoAge v1.0.0:

Windows Executable (just unzip and run): PhotoAge (5)

Python 2.6.x Source Code: PhotoAge - Source (3)

You are such a happy and outgoing sweet girl.  The past 3 years have been so wonderful.
And as Jillian would say: “Me am 3!”

Jillian's 3rd Year

Jillian's 2nd Year

Jillian's 1st Year

• A decent bike makes a huge difference. This one is a huge, huge step up from what I had before. Lighter, more efficient tires. I still don’t like riding, but it is better on this than the last one.
• If  your wife tells the friendly bike guy at REI your butt hurts when you ride he will explain to you in rather specific detail what a perineum is (I already know, thanks) and why it gets sore when you ride your bike.  Not a conversation I thought I would ever have with anyone, anywhere, let alone in a retail store with a stranger.
• Drivers don’t understand hand signals. In fact when I signal right they seem to think I am waving at them.
• Lights don’t change for you even when you are in a bike lane.  You have three choices:

Run the light (just do it).

Wait for cars to come (you may wait a very, very long time).

Either get off or ride your bike to the curb (even if you are in the far left turn lane) and press the crosswalk button, then wait some more.

• Bike lanes are the trash cans of the roads. They are filled with pot holes, broken glass, loose gravel, pinecones, fast food containers and dearly departed pets.
• Biking is too efficient and doesn’t burn nearly enough calories. I only burn 44% of the calories I would burn from running the same distance.
• 30 plus mph is lots of fun and just the right amount of terrifying.
• I will never “break even” with the cost of a bus pass because the required accessories (fenders for rain, rack and panniers for stuff, pumps, replacement tubes, etc) cost a small fortune. You could get a decent bike for less than an expensive set of panniers.
• At a signal, when the light turns green I can beat most cars off the line and across the intersection. It is simple physics that I have a lot less mass and better gearing for that 2 seconds of the ride. There are a few exceptions. The following people will floor their car to beat me across the street:

The person in the car next to me is a man of any age driving a sports car

The person in the car next to me is a man of any age driving a really crappy car.

The person in the car next to me is a man under 25 driving any car of any kind.

• People have three ways of passing:

Never actually pass. Just ride right up next to me so that if I were to swerve a few inches I’d collide with your front bumper.

Pass me in residential areas at about 60 miles an hour.

Pass me at 60 miles per hour without moving over an inch even when there is no bike lane. This one is preferred by cab drivers.

• At the bottom of every hill in which you finally get up some momentum, there will be a stop sign forcing you to eat up all that lovely kinetic energy, grinding it up into worthless heat in your brakes. There will be no coasting for you!
• You aren’t supposed to use all of your gears. In fact some combinations of them will never, ever be used. You aren’t supposed to let the chain go diagonal. So in the first front gear you can use only 1-4 or so of the back set, the middle front gear can only use the middle few gears in back and the third gear in front can only use the hardest, upper gears in the back.  I stole the picture below (highlighting in green which gears you can use on an 18-speed) from a very thorough page with lots more details. I’m not sure how I managed to ride a bike on and off for thirty-one years without knowing this. This is why the internet is now my official best friend.

Being the geek I am I have attached my running GPS to the bike and have been tracking the time it takes for me to ride to and from work. Plus I like to see how fast I can get down the one decent hill (record is 32 mph so far). You can see that I am trending a little faster as the days go, but I chalk that up to my increased willingness to run lights (safely), rather than some improvement in . Each light I run cuts a few minutes (10-15% of my total trip) off my time compared to waiting for it to go green again.

Unfortunately Wesley’s bike is just a little too big and even with the seat all the way down he couldn’t get his feet flat on the ground.  So he pushed himself around for a few minutes, but had trouble balancing because he had to lean side to side to reach the ground. We put the pedals back on and after just a few minutes he was riding around for short distances all by himself.

Here we are celebrating his first real ride on a two-wheeler:

And here we are shortly thereafter being attacked by crocodiles (They live in the rain gutter on the inner edge of the track. What, you didn’t know?):

After that Wesley rode all the way around the track:

He was really, really pleased with himself.

He still has a few kinks to work out. This crash gave him a nice mark on his armpit that you can still see. He isn’t perfectly stable, but he is well on his way to being training wheel free!

After riding we spent some time playing baseball, running around and of course, picking flowers.

Well he sure has grown up!

We were lucky enough to have him come visit and spend the night. We hardly ever get to see him because he (and the rest of his family of course) lived in Alaska and now Georgia. Plus when he did come to visit we lived in Texas so we didn’t get to see him. Well, we are home now and he his back visiting his dad for the summer. So we got to have him spend the night! The kids have been super excited about him coming all week, counting down the sleeps until he arrives. We haven’t seen him since…gosh…Ashley and Greg’s wedding in 2008. Because we have been having such warm, dry, sunny weather we headed down to Picnic Point, had a picnic and then played on the beach. Wesley was especially excited to see his big cousin.

The kids were really excited to see him (especially Wesley who loves hanging out with his older friends and cousins).

Here are some pictures from our beach trip, click them to enlarge. We waded in the Sound, rolled over logs and rocks (but didn’t find much because it was high tide), made a sand castle and generally had some goofy fun. The kids did not want to leave. When we got home they all had to have a shower to de-sand themselves from head-to-toe.

We really had a good time and I hope we get the chance to hang out with him again this Summer before he goes back to Georgia.  It has been way too long! We have lots more pictures of Ryley on Flickr.

Until 4pm – we did nothing.  It was a nice and relaxing day.

Then we went out and did a couple of fireworks.  Wesley and Jillian both shot off a gun, we did a couple of crackling balls and the tank.

Her gun really shot out the streamers.

Watching the tank.

It did not move...

Then we had several hours before we needed to leave to watch the big firework show in Edmonds.   We did not bring our camera.  But I did a search on Flickr and found George Bentley’s great photos from the show.

We did manage to get a family picture in before we left for the show.  The kids thought it was cool that we were all wearing red shirts.

We got back from the fireworks show a little before 11pm.  It was time to shoot off the fireworks that Aunt Dri picked out for the kids.

1st one.

Wesley and Jillian were so funny watching the fireworks.  Their expressions are great!

They did a lot of running around in with excitement.

ground flower

They tried many different "views".

This is the last picture of Jillian happy.

Then she got cold and wanted to be done.

His excitement just grew with each firework!

Sparkler time.

All of the ones we shot off were very tame.  None of them whisled or made very much noise.  I guess the firework people knew what they were doing – Adrianne picked out a little backpack filled with fireworks for the kids – and they were very calm fireworks.

Then we had one last firework.  It shot out the bottom and tipped over and started shooting at us.  One hit Wesley in the leg and then a couple shot out at us.  We all ran and got out of the way.  Luckily Wesley was wearing pants.  He was not hurt and is pants have a small singe on them.  Wesley thought it was scary and cool at the same time.  He kept saying how fast he was and got out of the way.  It was pretty cute.

The one that caused all the problems.

Next year should be very fun.  I can only imagine how excited Wesley will be next year.  And maybe Jillian will try a sparkler too.  This year she would not go near them.

Redmond was enjoying every single smell along the way!

About 1.25 miles up the trail is where the beautiful twin waterfalls are located.

The next 3.5 miles of the trail lead to a campground.  Along the way we saw so many huge banana slugs, a few garter snakes, a mouse, a chipmunk and a few birds.

Wesley would have been in slug heaven!

Not only do you have amazing trees, plants and rocks to look at – since the trail follows the river you get to see it often, but you hear it almost the whole time you are hiking.

I am a slow hiker…I did not make it to the end.  We had to get to Adrianne’s birthday party.  So at the 2 hour mark, even though I knew I was almost at the end, I turned around.  I took the backpack and the camera and started the hike back to the car.  Joshua wanted to get the end (and I wanted him to also) so he and Redmond would run ahead for 10 minutes and hopefully the would get to the end.  They did.  They only had to run for 4 minutes.   They got to the campsite area and then ran back to catch up with me. Our hike back went well.  It always seems faster when you are going back.

No kids to take pictures of so...

I have to include these pictures of Redmond.  Good thing he was on leash the whole time.  He would find a smell and just want to GO to find it.

Congratulations to the entire family! I hope we’ll see you guys in July.

We are really excited to welcome another new baby this week!  Mat and Becca greeted their new baby boy Zane Raymond Myers at 2:20pm on June 29th, 2010. He weighed in at 9lbs 30z and 21.5 inches long.  Go get ‘em Django!