The Sunday Five: Cars

1: Would you prefer to live without a car if you could? 

2: Have you ever been with someone when they decided to stop driving? 

3: When was the last time you drove a car with a manual transmission? 

4: Have you ever owned a diesel? 

5: Do you park inside or outside? 

My Answers: 

1: Would you prefer to live without a car if you could? One of the nice parts of living here, is I could. 

2: Have you ever been with someone when they decided to stop driving? Many years ago, my grandfather gave up on trying to get the car in garage, and handed me the keys, and said, "if I can't see to get in the garage, I guess I shouldn't drive anymore." It was a touching moment. 

3: When was the last time you drove a car with a manual transmission? Last spring in France, the rental car. It was the first time in about a decade. 

4: Have you ever owned a diesel? In the early 1980s I owned a VW Rabbit Diesel, I loved it, but it was a mechanical disaster. 

5: Do you park inside or outside? My car is outside (covered in snow in the photo above), the other car is in the garage.  

Please share you answers in the comments. 

The Saturday Morning Post: 50 states in 52 Weeks Georgia

Georgia is on the Atlantic coast, in the far southeast of the United States. Passing through Georgia is almost required to get to and from Florida.  My first visit there was before my memory, visiting grandparents in Florida one winter when I was about 3 years old. We started going to Florida every year when I was in the 8th grade. Georgia was the longest state to drive through from north to south. Interstate Highway I-75 passes through the state the long way. I-95 on the east side, is about half the distance. 

Savannah Georgia is a port city, about half way down the state.  I first visited there when I was driving my grandmother between the farm in Michigan and her home in Florida in the late 1970s.  Savannah became a favorite weekend getaway spot when I lived in central Florida. It was 4-5 hour drive.  Savannah was one of the first cities in the USA to deeply embrace historic preservation, triggered by the building of a very ugly, utilitarian parking garage on one the city squares.  I bought a rug from Jim Williams, the guy who was accused of murder in the book "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" a few years before the events and the book made Savannah a travel hotspot.  His brother Jerry operated an antique importing business down on the waterfront, I have half a dozen leaded glass windows I bought from him one day.  

Atlanta is headquarters for Delta Airlines.  When we lived in Lexington Delta was the dominant carrier.  I probably changed planes in Atlanta 50 times in 10 years.  We joked that you couldn't go to hell from Lexington without changing planes in Atlanta, and Atlanta was close enough to hell to be the same thing.  

Georgia, a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. 

 

Fluffy, Fleecy, Funky Friday

About 20 years ago we spent a week in the hamlet of Pateley Bridge in Yorkshire.  We rented a house, Duncan and Stephen rented a car and we spent several days exploring Yorkshire.  We visited the Wensleydale Creamery. Between the parking area and the visitors center we walked across a meadow with a small herd of sheep. It was my first encounter with our fluffy and fleecy friends. These sheep were used to seeing hundreds of people each day, and were very tame and friendly.  They welcomed a nice scratch on the back of the neck.  Growing up in the United States sheep were a very rare sight, I had never been near one before.  I found them to be gentle, and fluffy. 

I remember riding the train from Dublin to Galway in Ireland, everytime we passed a flock of sheep, I would go "bahh!" The older women sitting in the row in front of me, probably to this day thinks she was sitting in front of someone who had just been released from a mental hospital.  Bahh!

We have a large collection of house sheep. They are quiet and easy to take care of, the perfect inanimate house pets and they get along perfectly with the flock of house penguins.  

When you visit, feel free to give them a nice hug.  Enjoy the fluffy, fleecy, Funky Friday. 

You don't have to be crazy to live here, but it would make things easier to explain. 

The Thursday Ramble: The first top down days of spring

The weather has been going back and forth between nice and freezing, we have had a few warm and sunny afternoons.  Warm enough to put the top down, with the heated seats on.  The little VW is the first car we have owned with heated seats.  Until I had heated seats, heated seats never really made sense to me.  My father's last Buick in Florida had heated seats - a car that he never drove out of Florida.  To get the compass in the rear view mirror, he had to buy the package that included heated seats. 

On cold mornings, I twirl the switch and within a couple of minutes my lower back and rear end are nice and warm. The seat warms up much faster than the heater starts to warm the air. On a warmish day, turning on the seats and putting the top down, makes me warm on the back side, cool on the front side, with a little sun on the top side.   

The signs of spring are out there.  The ends of the tree branches change color, showing green or red depending on the variety of the tree.  The buds are swelling for the early bloom.  The daffodils are 4 or 5 inches tall and soon will put up flower stalks.  We saw snowdrops blooming when we were out for a walk last week. 

The changes of season are subtle.  Growing up on a farm with a grandfather who really understood nature, I probably notice signs that many do not. 

I enjoy this time of the year, except for the back below freezing part. And it is so nice to drive with the top open after the coldest months of the year.  

My World of Wonders also known as The Wednesday Ws March 5, 2025

Where have I been this week?  Trader Joe's, a walk on King Street and lunch with my sweet bear. The local independent bookstore. The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, we ended up with three shows in less than two weeks.  Out for a haircut.  The First Saturday morning community coffee, water aerobics. The gym, the pool. My doctor for my annual prescription renewals, the library, Aldi, and a tiny Mexican Restaurant that was very good. 

Who have I talked with? Ruth, Warren, Paul, Mike, Giuseppe, Larry, Elaine (she and I rode the condo shuttle bus at the same time until we retired.) Erica, Jessica, Cathy, a couple of ABA committees. My middle brother, three times. 

What have I been avoiding? Listening to the local lament about HWSNBN. The side chatter when I was having my hair cut was depressing - people summarily dismissed from jobs after 15-20 years of loyal service. 

What have I been reading? I finished The Plot Against Native America about the horrors of Indian Boarding Schools in Canada and the United States. Low Hanging Fruit Randy Rainbow's new book of sarcasm (if you want to know about him, search YouTube for his videos.) 

What have I been writing? I finished editing a piece on retirement planning, I am finishing an article on blogging, one on defining Elder Law, and one on staying active in the Bar Association as a reason to travel. These are all due while I we will be traveling, so I wanted to get them in early. 

What is a great relief this week? Taxes are done and filed. It was a complicated year, I had employment income, consulting income, pension income and retirement income. In the end, all is well. Turbotax gets less user friendly every year. I also did my middle brother's taxes, he is getting $38 back. 

What is the best thing I have read this week? 

(Warning it is political) 

"The Trump administration is a soap opera. The president is the producer and the star, responsible for the plot lines, the script, and the cast (all of whom are chosen to look the part). If a plot line works, such as a drive for a Nobel-Prize winning peace deal, then it will be developed and might run for many episodes. Otherwise it will be quietly dropped, or may just peter out. The purpose of every episode is to demonstrate the star’s brilliance." 

Read more at https://samf.substack.com/p/two-steps-backward 

Thank you to Angus in St Andrews for this link. Thinking of the chaos this way, makes sense. 

Travel Tuesday: From the Air

Potomac Yard, New Virginia Tech offices

Home is in one of the crescent shaped high rises on the hill

The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Lincoln Memorial, and Washington Monument

 

Moody Monday: What am I thinking

 Several readers asked about the pieces I have the current community Art Gallery Show.  

The top piece is a sterling silver hollow construction.  It is a round box, about an inch tall, with a malachite oval bevel set on top. I started with a flat sheet of silver, and built it from there. 

The second piece is a large painting 30 by 40 inches, in colorful stripes. It was painted in 2020 in the dark days of lockdown. 

The third piece is a print of my favorite photo from last year, take mid-Atlantic last May. 

The last piece is metal inlay with cast silver features.  The body is brass and copper sheet, cut and inlaid. The head, shield and spear are lost wax silver castings.  

I should go back to doing metal work.  I really enjoyed it.  When you are in the middle of working on it, the rest of the world fades into the background.  

The weather has started to warm up a bit.  I have been out for a few nice long walks outside.  As much as I enjoy my treadmill time watching YouTube, walking outside allows me to get away in my mind. The think about what I want to think without reminders of the horrors going on around us.  I walked along the Potomac River along the north side of Alexandria, just down river from last month's airliner crash.  I couldn't stop myself from looking at the water, wondering what might be floating by. 

There is a call for the next art show, but I think I will pass on this one, among other things I will be unavailable when that show comes down, they want you to retrieve your art when the show ends. There I am thinking ahead. 

I have a couple of short articles to write before we leave in a little over a month for the next adventure.  What was I thinking when I said, yes I can do that? 

I am tackling things that need to be done that are within my control.  We filed for ETA permission to enter the United Kingdom, we need that for April. I filed on the App, Sweet Bear filed online. The application portal is still glitchy, for example, it won't process the credit card unless you enter the "state" and there is no designated line to enter the "State or Province.' Whoever wrote the code has never traveled outside of Britain.  Both of us were approved within a couple of minutes. I have done as much checking in for the cruise as I can. I am working on getting taxes done.  By the end of this week everything that needs to be done, should be done.  The got to do list, plus the current chaos have a low level anxiety simmering in my mind.  By tackling the things within my control, it becomes easier to live with the things I cannot control.  

Control what you can.  If you feel anxiety, you are not alone. Do what you can.  We will survive this. We must be here to rebuild when the dust settled and HWSNBN is a permanent resident on a golf course.    

The Sunday Five: Shoes

1: Do you prefer shoes that are comfortable or stylish? 

2: Do you wear shoes in the house when you are at home? 

3: About how many pairs of shoes do you currently own? 

4: When was the last time you had a pair of shoes resoled or otherwise repaired? 

5: When the weather allows, do you prefer to wear shoes or go barefoot? 

My answers: 

1: Do you prefer shoes that are comfortable or stylish?  Comfort - this has changed over the decades. 

2: Do you wear shoes in the house when you are at home? No, they come off and go in the closet as soon as I come in the house. 

3: About how many pairs of shoes do you currently own? About 30, then there is the big suitcase in the back corner of the closet that has probably another dozen in it. Yes, I had to go count. 

4: When was the last time you had a pair of shoes resoled or otherwise repaired? Probably 40 years ago. 

5: When the weather allows, do you prefer to wear shoes or go barefoot?  Barefoot, when I lived in Florida I would drive without shoes much of the year. 

Please share your answers in the comments. 

The Saturday Morning Post - 50 States in 52 Weeks- Florida

 

Ah, Florida, the Sunshine State.  Florida played a major role in my life. My family first took me to Florida when I was 3 or 4 years old. We went back the year Walt Disney World opened, then a couple of winters later started spending winters in Florida.  My grandparents were on the west coast, north of Tampa about 60 miles.  The first winter we lived in Spring Hill.  After that we went to the east coast, across the intercoastal waterway from the space center.  I moved there after high school.  I lived in Titusville for about three years, then moved to Orlando. I lived in Orlando from 1980 to 1995. The last decade of that about three miles directly north of Orlando International Airport, step out the back yard and count the tires on the landing jumbo jets. 

I earned my first University degree at Rollins College in Winter Park. I built myself three homes. I sold and built over 250 houses over fifteen years (I didn't keep track of how many.) I had dark times, and good times.  I grew a lot, while I lived there. 

I met my sweet bear, and we moved when he had a great job opportunity, and the move opened the door for me to go back to school and earn a doctorate in my field. I was ready for a change, and moving was the surest way of assuring change. 

When people think of Florida, they think of sandy beaches and Walt Disney World. There is so much more to it. Central Florida is a complex landscape of pine and palmetto scrub.  There are thousands of freshwater lakes. There is rhythm to the four seasons in Florida that is subtle, and unique. It took me a decade of living there to really understand the seasons, the landscape, the place.  

Florida is crowded. Traffic is terrible due to poor planning and lack of infrastructure.  I can't explain the rise of far right politics. And hurricanes were an annual concern. 

I have to list Florida as a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there again.  

Foodie Friday: Bake Some Bread

There is nothing like the smell and taste of freshly baked bread.  My mother was afraid of working with yeast, and my grandmothers had breathed a sigh of relief when bakery bread relieved them of the work of baking bread. So I grew up in a house where bread was not made. I taught myself as an adult.   

A few background suggestions. 

I use a heavy duty stand mixer with a dough hook, in my case a Kitchenaid 5-quart.  I started kneading bread by hand. For a beginner I would recommend kneading dough by hand to get a feel for how it changes texture and springiness as it develops gluten.  Knowing how it should look, feel and sound, makes it easier to know when the machine has done its job well. 

I buy rapid rise yeast in bulk quantities.  When I started baking bread one of the local markets sold it in 1/2 pint containers in the refrigerated counter.  I order it in one-pound foil blocks. It stores in the freezer for years, in the refrigerator for months.  The yeast I am using now, has been in the freezer for 5 years, by accident I ended up with four pounds of yeast in late 2019.  

I use bread flour, a flour with a higher protein component.  This makes a stronger gluten, and I think a better bread than all purpose flour. I use the same brand of flour for greater consistency. Each flour will work a little differently.  The amount of flour that works well will vary with the flour itself, and with the humidity in the room. The recipe is a starting point, not a chemistry formula. If it seems to wet and sticky, add more flour, if it won't come together as a dough, add more water (or less flour.) 

Ingredients 

1.5 tablespoons of dry active yeast

1 tablespoon of sugar

2 cups warm water 105 degrees F

1 tablespoon salt

5.5 cups of bread flour (give or take .5 cups) 

1-2 ounces melted butter

handful of cornmeal

1 egg white and an equal amount of water  

Dissolve sugar in the water, check the temp, you want over 100 (f) under 115 (f)

Stir in yeast, and set aside for 5 minutes or so to activate the yeast. It will bubble and become foamy in about 5 minutes. If it does not, the yeast may be dead, start over. 

Mix flour and salt. 

Pour in liquid, mix by hand to form a very stiff dough. 

Knead, either by hand on a floured work surface or with a dough hook in a stand mixer for about 10 minutes. I set the Kitchenaid speed on the second notch. 

Melt the butter, 

Butter the bowl, and turn the dough to coat, cover and set aside to rise for 1.5 to 3 hours, until roughly doubled. 

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. 

Form into two or three loaves

Place on baking sheet sprinkled with corn meal.

Brush the top of the loaves with an egg wash made from the egg white and water. This will form a nice crust on the top. 

Bake 35-45 minutes, until golden brown.  When done, it will sound hollow when thumped on the top or bottom of the loaf. 

Cool on a rack, and enjoy. 

I baked these two on a pizza stone. 

The best book I have ever read on bread baking, is "Beard on Bread" by James Beard, published in 1973. It is well worth chasing down a copy.  

The Thursday Ramble: Talking and talking too much

When I was in my late 20's, my mother gave me an envelope with all of my school report cards or grade reports.  I had no idea that she had kept them. If I dig through them, especially some of the early ones, I am sure I will find comments from teachers, that "he talks too much." I sometimes wonder if I still do.  Over the years I have heard the old sayings, you have two ears and one mouth, you should listen twice as much as you talk, and better to remain silent and have them wonder if you are a fool, than to speak up and confirm that you are. And yet I talk. Often more than I should.  I seldom say something that I regret saying, a few random comments over the years haunt me - thoughts that were unkind and should have remained unsaid. 

My worry is that I bore people by talking too much. 

Like many, I dislike silence. There is an old principle in sales, that when a sale is asked for (a closing question is asked) the next person who talks buys it. All to often the sales person grows afraid of the silence and speaks first.

In professional speaking, and I have done a lot of it over the years; and when presenting training, I worked hard on making what I said, worth listening to.  I also tried to make use of silence. I remember one time, I was doing a training on elder abuse for AARP in Nashville. I showed a video clip of an older gentleman who was being financially exploited by a handsome younger man. I asked the open questions about what was going on, why did the older man allow it to happen? And waited for the answers. A few came in, and no one would say gay.  Finally, after probably 30 seconds - but it felt like an hour, I spoke up. "I know there are Gay Men in Nashville, my ex-wifes' first ex-husband lives here."* The silence broken, and people started to talk - a - little. 

So what is the photo? Lion's Mane Mushrooms at a Sunday Market in Phoenix, locally grown.    

*She seems to have had better luck on the third, though she never married this one, he moved in with her two weeks after she moved out in 1991- and they are still together.  

My World of Wonders aka The Wednesday Ws the last week in February 2025

Where have I been this week?  Last Wednesday (after I posted) I went into DC and had lunch with my replacement as director. The gym, the pool, I helped hang an art exhibit in the community center, and went to the opening reception on Saturday.  Sunday we went to the Kennedy Center for the National Symphony. The bank, Trader Joe's and a walk in old town north.  

Who have I talked with this week? My sweet bear, Erica the director of the ABA Commission on Law and Aging, Linda and Kevin who organized and hung the art exhibit, Pratibha who organized the showcase exhibit. Anna, Susan, Ruth - neighbors.  Warren and Paul at water aerobics.  It was a busy social week for me.  Maybe that is why I am feeling less stressed. 

What about the Art Exhibit? I have a painting, a photograph and two pieces of metal work in the current exhibit.  

What was my message at the exhibit opening?  Two things, you learn about yourself when you study art, and despite my owning thousands of dollars in cameras and lenses, the best photo I took in 2024 was with my phone. Don't think you need expensive tools, to create amazing art.  

What is keeping me busy?  We have a long trip coming up, I am making sure there will be blog posts, even if we are offline.  So I have been creating and scheduling posts. We have WiFi on the cruise this year, but I am unsure how fast it will be. 

What is the exciting news of the week? My sister is starting as a docent at the Ft. Wayne Children's Zoo in a month.  She will talk about the animals and guide guests through interacting with them. 

What made me think? Listening to the unraveling of diversity, equity and inclusion in this country, and reading commentary by authors in England, what the MAGAs and Tories are upset about, is the end of domination of society by white, anglo-saxon protestants (WASPS.) Catholics are marginally included - primarily for their views on reproductive freedoms and religious schools, but are a problem when it comes to helping the immigrants.  These are people who never realized that they were privileged, protesting the loss of advantage.

Who went with us to the symphony? Timmy from Shaun the Sheep

What am I reading? By the time this posts I will have finished a collection of essays by Annie Dillard, and started a book on the destruction native American cultures. 

What have I been up to in the kitchen? I baked bread, made a nice beef stew, and buttermilk fried chicken.  

Travel Tuesday: Wandering Around Phoenix

Entrance to a parking lot

Light Rail Line on Central Avenue

Challenges must be faced to be changed.

Mural in a parking lot off Roosevelt Avenue 

The Scorpions can get large

On the lower level of Spo's favorite downtown restaurant. 

Basilica 

Morning light 

Sunrise view from the room I was staying in 

Monday Mood: Speaking Only When It Counts

I am doing surprisingly well.  DC continues to be in chaos. The push back is starting to gain momentum.  Judges are issuing injunctions against the clearly unconstitutional orders.  Appeals will follow, and enforcement of those orders will likely be the breaking point. The legal answer at that point, if HWSNBN refuses to comply is impeachment and removal.  There are cracks appearing in the majority in the House and Senate. It could happen this time.  Mitch confirmed that he will not run for reelection in 2027, making him less beholden to HWSNBN. He has a lot of sway in the Senate. 

It is important to remember, that an Executive Order, is a direction to a Federal Administrative body, on how to do the business of government. And Executive Order is not a law, it can't overturn a statute.  It can, suspend work on something created by law. But that does not change the law. 

When the dust settles, and it will sooner or later.  We will rebuild. And in rebuilding, maybe we can do better.  There are some entrenched inefficiencies in the system.  There are some long time staff with hardened attitudes that resist change.  Many of them are retiring or being forced out. This is a brutal way to bring change. Some of them have been obstacles to improvements. (Though I never worked for the Federal government, I include myself among those with a hardening of the attitudes that needed to let the next generation lead into the future.) 

This is not the way to manage change. 

Think of it this way. We have an old bridge over the inlet to an bay.  Everyone knows the bridge is out of date, rusting, and failing slowly.  What we should do is start the planning and engineering process and build a new better bridge. What we often do, is wait for a catastrophic failure, a ship bumps a pier and the bridge collapses like a house of cards into the bay. Then we start planning for the new bridge we should have planned for, long before people died. (Yes I am thinking of Baltimore here. Maryland has a couple of major bridges that need to be replaced, this was just one of them.) What the administration is doing is knocking those bridges down. The sensible thing to do would be to start the planning process to find what needs to be changed and change it in an orderly fashion. 

This past week there was a claim that Social Security had a bunch of people 150 years old drawing retirement benefits.  This was based on bad data. And the professionals that worked at SSA, knew that the data was wrong and how to work with it. No one asked them, before making outrageous claims. To fix the data they needed to replace a massive database, that was written 40 years ago in a nearly dead computer language that lacked coding for dates outside of limited ranges. The cost of the fix was estimated at $9-million (more than editing the code, my oldest brother could do that for a-couple-hundred-grand, replacing it with a modern database.) It was decided to live with the error, rather than spend the money. If we had logically talked through the issues, this would have been fixed in a rational way.  It should have been fixed 25 years ago. Maybe now it will be. 

My strategy, 

Stay calm.

Understand this is ugly, and when it is over we will rebuild.

Speak up, rationally and logically when appropriate. 

Let the legal and political process do it's thing. 

Understand that much of what HWSNBN wants to do, he can't do, unless we stand back silently and let it happen. 

The toes he is stepping on today, are at the end of the legs, that go up to the butts he will need to kiss someday.  

The Sunday Five: How Do We Blog

My messy desk, where the magic happens

1: How do you decide what to write about? 

2: Do you know before you draft a post, what you are going to say? 

3: Why do you blog? 

4: Does reading other blogs influence your posts? 

5: How many posts do you have written in advance? 

My answers: 

1: How do you decide what to write about? Having theme days really helps, it gives me a framework. I always start with a photo. 

2: Do you know before you draft a post, what you are going to say? Not really, sometimes I randomly scroll through the photo archive (nearly 100,000 images) and find one that inspires me.  

3: Why do you blog? To share photos and thoughts, to improve my writing, and to be a part of the blogging network or family. 

4: Does reading other blogs influence your posts? Yes, probably once a week, I write a post inspired by a post that I have read. 

5: How many posts do you have written in advance? At the time I wrote this, I had 11 scheduled posts, and a few more in draft.  

Please share your answers in the comments. 

The Saturday Morning Post: 50 states in 52 weeks Delaware

Delaware is mostly a state I pass through on my way from Washington DC to New York and points north. I have been there three times for work.  One time was an AARP training, one was checking on a subgrantee my first year at the ABA, and the last time was to present a couple of hours of ethics training at the Law School for the Delaware State Bar Association. I also went to the last great blogger gathering hosted by Ron on the eastern shore of Delaware. 

Wilmington is the major city, Amtrak has good service there. There is almost no airline service to the state.  It is a tiny state. 

Delaware's claim to fame, is liberal corporate laws, and low taxes. At one time, it was a corporate tax haven for many US based corporations.  

There are a few things in the state to see, and someday, I will do a driving trip there to explore.  

Foodie Friday: Grandmother’s Proper Macaroni and Cheese

For me there is only one proper way to make macaroni and cheese, the way my grandmother made it. This has nothing to do with a box mix, or powdered cheese.  It starts with real ingredients and finishes with a long bake in a moderate oven that results in something cheesy, crusty and firm. 

The box mix Mac and cheese started as a way to try to use up a massive surplus of dehydrated cheese. During World War II, the department of defense placed huge orders for dehydrated cheese. It was light weight and had a very long shelf life.  At the end of the war, Kraft had millions of pounds of it ready to ship, and the market ended.  The "food scientists" created box mac and cheese mix, a cheap and easy "food" to try to get rid of the powdered cheese.  It should have been discontinued when the war surplus was exhausted. Even better, the government should have bought up the dehydrated cheese and used it as livestock feed (pigs love it.)  

Ingredients: 

8 ounces dried macaroni 

12-16 ounces well aged cheddar cheese (better cheese makes better Mac and cheese)

4 ounces smoked cheese 

1.5 cups milk

2 ounces of butter

2 ounces of flour 

salt

1 teaspoon ground mustard 

Method: 

Pre-heat oven to 375(f)

Grate the cheeses. 

Boil the macaroni in lightly salted water per package directions.  Drain and set aside. 

Make a basic white sauce or bechamel. Start by melting equal weights of butter and flour over medium heat in a 2 quart sauce pan.  Allow the butter to melt and the flour to cook in. Add milk, some recommend preheating the milk.  Whisk over medium or medium high heat, until it starts to thicken.  Add about 3/4 of the cheese, whisking to melt the cheese into a smooth sauce. 

Fully mix the macaroni with the cheese sauce. 

Put into a lightly greased casserole dish, I used a glass loaf pan, and cooking spray. Top with remaining grated cheese (not bread crumbs.) 

Bake for 45 to 60 minutes, until bubbly and lightly browned on the top.  The sides and bottom should have a nice cheesy crust when done.  

Cool slightly and serve.  Refrigerate leftovers. When chilled you should be able to slice it with a knife. 

Most Mac and Cheese fails on two  levels.  Most of it is made with raw cheese mixed in with the cooked macaroni, giving it a spotty texture with lumps of cheese and spots of starchy macaroni stuck together with insufficient cheese. And most Mac and cheese is under baked, many are merely warmed through in an oven - not baked.  This should be baked as a casserole.  This develops the crust on the bottom, sides and top. That cheese crust adds massively to the flavor complexity.