On my nephew's first birthday present from me

My nephew Edward turned 1 last week. I ordered a couple of board books from Chapters-Indigo to be sent to him. Hey, I'm a librarian. Anyway, they arrived yesterday. Edward got to open the box. Margaret recorded the incident on camera.He seems to like the books. Yes, that is a Star Wars Spaceships board book he is holding.
My brother and I were kids when Star Wars came and we are Star Wars geeks. It seemed very appropriate for Edward as the love of Lucasfilm is going to be transmitted one way or the other. Margaret says Stephen enjoyed reading the books to Edward nearly as much as Edward likes them.

I am not first one to send Edward down the dark path of Star Wars geekdom as his mother had already made him a crocheted lightsaber. If you look at the next photo, you may note that Edward is somewhat younger than in the other photos.
To paraphrase Douglas Adams (more geekdom): "People have done worse things to children, if perhaps not much sillier."

On the why I haven't been blogging and bits and pieces

The short version is that I haven't been doing any interesting biking.

Unfortunately, that is also a slightly inaccurate version as I have had to change the route I had been biking in the morning for over ten years. The cause? Well, they are starting work again on the new English Montreal super-hospital or whatever it is they are calling it. More specifically, they are hauling dirt out via Décarie southbound, south of de Maisonneuve. This means reduced traffic flow northbound (i.e. me). In addition, they are doing work under the train underpass which further reduces traffic flow and is making Decarie between de Maisonneuve and St-Jacques too unpleasant for me. My solution? Go up the Glen instead, and hang a left on Ste-Catherine. I hadn't been doing that before as it is a slightly longer route, it involves a steeper climb and it means I have to make an unpleasant left turn at a busy light.

My readers with a knowledge of my part of Montreal will know what I am talking about.

In other biking news, Floria is officially a faster bike than The Castafiore was. It has been taking me four to five minutes less time to get to work. Not bad for a nominal 30 minute bike ride.

On a use for molasses and the Internet
A year or more ago, I read about blackstrap molasses somewhere. Somehow, the idea of it caught my imagination and I went to considerable lengths to get my hands on some. I then had the embarrassment of not being able to figure out what I want to do with it. I did have the idea of combining molasses and oatmeal in some sort of baked good, but I didn't have a recipe nor do I do much baking.

For some reason, I finally figured out how to get a recipe. Do a google search for "cookie oatmeal blackstrap molasses recipe". This is the result:
Reasonably tasty, and a mistake to bake the day before I go to the gym and weigh myself.

Also, the appearance of molasses is really quite beautiful.