derekl1963

( Do not click if humor impaired or politically correct. )

Nicked from: gwalchgwyn

	I received 86 credits on The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz How much of a Sci-Fi geek are you?
Quiz by SheGoddess: Quick Weight Loss

A long, tiring, but very fun weekend.

Brenda and I attended the annual Spring Fling geocacher gathering down in Port Orchard and had a blast. The high point (for me) was getting to spend some time chatting with Team Geoteeth who traveled all the way from Holland to attend the Fling. GreenXnHam and I also spent over an hour discussing and debating the finer points of trying to determine in advance whether a cache was worth doing by reviewing the logs other cachers had posted.

This was also the first time we took the RV out camping, and we are so hooked - getting up in the morning, hitting the bathroom, and having the first cup of coffee without having to go out into the cold and mist... wonderful! We've got quite a list of things to do better or stock the RV with in advance of the next trip...

We've been baking all evening for a potluck this weekend, so the house is quite warm. We've got the windows open to let things cool down a bit. But still I reach for a jacket to go outside for a smoke...

Brenda and I were, as we sometimes do, just sitting and watching videos on YouTube tonite. For whatever reason, I chose to listen to songs from 1975 using the Wikipedia page on music in 1975 as guide to find songs. On the list was C.W. McCall's Convoy...

Which brought back some old memories, as during the CB craze my uncle released an album of trucker music. On a whim, I decided to google it... And found that just today someone had blogged about it and made it available for download.

Damn.

I swear - if we ever build a house, it will have two dining rooms. One will be the real dining room, where we eat. The other will serve the purpose our dining table always seems to default to - a place to put the random crap we don't know precisely what to do with at the moment.

Average time from a clean table to cluttered again seems to run around .00325 seconds right now.

You Should Live in a Small City

You are definitely an urban person, but not any old city will do. You want a city that matches you well. For you, big cities lack individuality. You prefer a smaller city with lots of personality, local culture, and history.

Unsurprising to me really - but Bremerton is really too small.

Nicked from seticat

Thought I'd better alert you to this scam. Be careful...you could be next.

A warning for men who may be regular Home Depot customers. Over the last month I became a victim of a clever scam while out shopping. Simply going out to get supplies has turned out to be quite traumatic. Don't be naive enough to think it couldn't happen to you or your friends. Here's how the scam works.

Two seriously good-looking 20-21 year-old girls come over to your car as you are packing your shopping into the trunk. They both start wiping your windshield with a rag and Windex, with their breasts almost falling out of their skimpy T-shirts. It is impossible not to look. When you thank them and offer them a tip, they say 'No' and instead ask you for a ride to another Home Depot or Lowe's. You agree and they get in the back seat. On the way, they start undressing. Then one of them climbs over into the front seat and starts crawling all over you, while the other one steals your wallet. I had my wallet stolen October 4th, 9th, 10th, twice on the 15th, 17th, 20th and 24th. Also November 1st, 4th, twice on the 6th, three times just yesterday and very likely this coming weekend and next. So tell your friends to be careful.

What bizarre weather this weekend. Sunny, cloudy, warm, cold, rain, hail... Even by the loose standards of the Pacific Northwet this is unusual.

Saturday

Up early and off to the RAGS (Rotary Annual Garage Sale). It's been quite a few years since we went, so we were quite surprised by the crowds.

I bought this print in the silent auction - I've already got a spot picked out for it when I redo the computer room this summer.



Brenda also bid on a pair of prints, but was outbid - she was pondering raising her bid (since it was still below our limit), but started talking to a lady about the pair... Who turned out to a) be really interested in them, b) a really nice lady, and c) the lady who had outbid Brenda. She decided to let her have the prints. Brenda also scored a Longaberger basket cheaply - but it wasn't until we got home that we discovered why nobody had bid on it... It turned out to have a childish dirty word scribbled on the inside of the lid.

Sunday

Baking day! Attempted to bake a loaf of sourdough, and hit abysmal failure due to factors beyond my control - more on that later. Also baked the basic bread for this week, which came out wonderful:



Yes, by noon today half a loaf is already gone! We had a later than expected dinner because we both snacked (OK, it was more than snacking) on several slices after it cooled.

This recipe is from The Bread Baker's Apprentice which I bought last weekend, and all by itself has paid for the book. There's a bit of tuning to be done nonetheless. I'm also pondering on entering some bread in the Fair this year.

Happy 108th Birthday to the USN Submarine Service!



If you would, join me tonight in raising a glass to my brothers and shipmates serving around the globe, to those who have served in the past, and most importantly to those serving on Eternal Patrol.

Wednesday the Culinary Guild of the Barony of Dragon's Laire (An Tir) held a class/demo on baking under a cloche. (A period technique.) I've posted some pictures to my personal LJ here.

Last night the Dragon's Laire baronial Culinary Guild held a class/demo on bread making and baking in cloches (a period technique) on a brazier. Much fun was had by all, and much yummy bread was consumed. Thanks to THL Mattuesz and THL Rycheza for hosting, Lord Yvonn for photography, and to HE Cedric and THL Kassandra for assisting me in tending the fire and handling the cloches. Lady Margret and Heidi both made loaves of bread under the instruction of THL Rycheza.




Cloches warming in the brazier.



Bread rising on the counter.



HE Cedric (in the gloves) assists THL Kassandra in mounding the coals over the loaded cloches. (The bread is underneath them, and will be baked by the heat of the preheated metal underneath and the heat from the coals mounded around the cloches.)



After the bread has baked, HE Cedric lifts the (very hot!) cloche off of Lady Margaret's loaf of barley bread.



Two fresh loaves! Lady Margret's barley loaf on the left, Heidi's wheat loaf on the right. (The burned bits are normal, and easily scraped off leaving the loaf quite edible.)



After baking, we check the interior of the loaf for quality. We also checked it for taste... but Lord Yvvon decided to forgo photography for stuffing his face (excuse me "helping to test the taste and quality of the bread") during that part, so no pictures.

All started out well, but by Sunday evening the beery/yeasty smell that marked a culture coming to life was replaced by a very rancid one. Checking my notes against my instructions showed I'd screwed up - I hadn't been feeding it often enough, thus allowing 'bad' bugs to take over.

So I started a replacement, and also started one based on a different flour.

1. Starter #1 is based on commercial white flour.
   
2. Starter #2 is based on fresh ground organic whole wheat from Central Market.

We'll see how these go over the next couple of days.

Pondering what to do with the leftover chicken and cheese from wraps I made last weekend... I had a sudden inspiration. I whipped up a batch of pizza crust (I love my breadmaker), grabbed a can of tomato sauce and whipped up a batch of pizza sauce - and voila! Yummy homemade pizza. I really wish I'd taken a picture as it came out so lovely and browned.

But there is still a little chicken and cheese left over, plus sauce left over... What to do?

Calzones - I'll make more dough tonite and let it mellow in the refrigerator overnight, then serve 'em forth for dinner tomorrow night.

I also started a sourdough starter tonite with the goal of trying some sourdough bread in the cloche at June Faire.

Pardon the one longish and rambling post, but it's better than a bunch of semi-connected smaller posts I think.

Well, the great storm bandied about by the weather pundits simply didn't happen for us - just a few flakes mixed with rain on Thurs and Fri. I even tempted the weather by leaving the van in the alley rather than facing it out in the driveway as I normally do when a storm is pending. No dice.

Onward to the weekend - gardening and food!

Friday:

Dinner was absolutely wonderful. I had a few extra apples so I conceived a dish with browned pork chops and sauteed apples. At the last moment, I realized my plan of adding a not-sweet note with dried cranberries was not what the dish wanted. Instead, I quickly ground up some white pepper and added it with a touch of mace and a whisper of nutmeg and finished with a little bit of (undiluted) concentrated frozen apple cider. Served with some Stove Top stuffing and a nice salad - much yummy!

Saturday:

Spent the morning at Fred Meyer shopping for plants and waiting in line for the free potting service they were offering. In the afternoon we went over the Dream Dinners in Poulsbo and made a stack of dinners for the freezer. Yeah, they are a bit pricey but it's fun, the food is tasty, and the dishes help kick me out of my rut and inspire my own cooking. (Fridays dinner was in fact a spin off of a dish they offer.)

Dinner however was a creation of my own: I brined some chicken breasts, then poached them nice and low so they'd stay juicy. While they rested, I sauteed some sliced mushrooms and as they were finishing I wilted some baby spinach in the same pan. I sliced the chicken breasts thin, laid them in a tortilla with the spinach and mushroom mixture, then topped it with mozzarella cheese and wrapped it all up and served it forth with a salad of spring greens. Mmm.... They only change I would make in the future is maybe a bit of herbs in the spinach-and-mushroom mixture, and either add some Romano cheese or substitute entirely for the Mozzarella as overall it was a bit too rich without much in the way of complementary flavors.

Sunday:

We looked at the plants we had bought they day before, and decided we weren't entirely happy with the potting job. The soil they used wasn't very good, and in my pots there wasn't any screening over the drain holes. Brenda worked some better soil in and around her plants, while I centered mine better in the pots, worked in some better soil, and dug down and put in drainage screens.




Dill, rosemary, and thyme in the square pots. Four pots full of fuschia for the front porch. Lavender (left front) because Brenda likes lavender. All sitting inside the sliding door in the dining room with some random houseplants because it's too darn cold for them outside. I set them outside today to get a little sun once it warmed up - which along with bringing them back in will, I suspect, will be part of my morning routine for the next couple of weeks.

Brenda spent the afternoon digging out a bed by the front walk for some iris bulbs. Along with my culinary herbs this is part of a multi-year plan to expand the plantings in the yard/garden and to beautify the yard.

It's one thing when an experiment doesn't work quite right.

It's quite another when you look at what was supposed to be dinner, had it worked, and say "if I work on this more tomorrow maybe I can salvage something edible, grab the car keys we're going to McDonald's".

Grrrrrrr

KIRO-TV is reporting that a parachute has been found buried in a field in Clark County NW of Vancouver - and that the chute matches the kind used by D.B. Cooper. Doing some digging around on the web, this sounds like the same general area that the cash was found back in 1980.

Interesting!

In one of the cartography blogs I read, I came across this entry showing the amount of ground covered by the first walks on the moon superimposed over a soccer field.

They also linked to a NASA image showing the amount of ground covered compared to a baseball diamond: (Click for a link to the full size original.)



Just for the amusement value, I laid the NASA image of a baseball diamond on top of a specific diamond many of us are familiar with....

From Maps

Though we made five more landings after the first.... It's still humbling to think how much of the moon remains unexplored.

If one simply must open a large and heavy spring loaded hatch (as in one you partially open and then said spring slams it fully open), one is advised to be aware of the position of ones face and hands while opening the hatch.  If one neglects to do this, one is advised to check the hands for blood before using said bloody hand to check the face for blood.  Your heart will thank you.

Side note 1: When Brenda messed up her glasses last year we went to the mall to get them fixed, and ended up with new cell phones.  I got was lunch with my sweetie in the food court.  The food, as to be expected, was pretty much crap - but I still think I got the better deal.

Side note 2: I don't get up to the mall that often - but I don't think I've ever seen that many closed stores in it before.  Fredrick's (of Hollywood), the Disney Store, Suncoast Video, B. Dalton's, and several others including McDonald's.  (I don't think I've ever seen a McDonald's closed before.)  I don't count the little corner place by Penney's that's usually some form of a furniture store...  That corner is cursed I think, nothing long survives there.

Nicked from renartthefox  :

You are a dog

Or maybe you are a mosquito, you certainly can't be human. The highest pitched ultrasonic mosquito ringtone that I can hear is 21.1kHz

Find out which ultrasonic ringtones you can hear!

Unsurprising really, I've always been able to hear high pitched sounds - back when some stores used ultrasonic detectors to operate their automatic doors, I'd be nearly in physical pain in them.