Veggie Report - July 29th

Quite a bit left-over from last week and the weekend camping trip: Lettuce, beet greens, spinach, and tons of green onions. 4 big bunches. Big. Like, 4-5 times the mass of those little bundles that you get in the grocery store. So, imagine 15 or so of those bunches in your 'fridge. Luckily, I love onions. The wife, not so much. So, where to put the onions?

Here's this week's list of veggies from Two Small Farms, our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm.

I got pickling cucumbers as the "mystery" and tarragon (got basil last week). Note that the lettuce is 2 big heads of red leaf (plus chard, plus cabbage - you have to loooove your greens) and the onions are bulbs with *huge* usable greens. Make that 20+ store-sized bunches of green onions.

So, tonight, I made:
- Creamed spinach, tarragon and chicken casserole. That "spinach"? Half green onions, well cooked. Turned out spectacularly well: broiled it with homemade bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese. mmMMMmmm.
- 3/4 of the red cabbage went into a standard "Adam dish": sauteed cabbage with vinegar plus lots of onion and garlic. I have it for lunches with sausage, bread, cheese and pickles. Hey, my people are from Eastern Europe, what can I tell you? The wife won't touch it, so I'm free to put big handfuls of green onions in it, plus some tarragon. Fewer kisses on "cabbage days", tho'. *sadface*
- 1/4 of the cabbage went to a cabbage, carrot, broccoli coleslaw without so much green onion in it, at all. We'll have that and something else picnic-y tomorrow when we go see the San Mateo "Music in the Park".
- Salsa Verde: used the CSA tomatillos, plus my poor little under-ripe cherry tomatoes from the garden, some lime juice, salt and chili flakes. And, yes, some green onions. Just for looks, I swear! Might be the winner from tonight. Homemade salsa verde is the bomb.
- Chicken stock: took the 2 chicken carcasses from the camping trip and all the trimmings from the above veggies (cabbage cores, green onion ends, tarragon stems, etc plus some garlic) and boiled them for a couple hours. It came out a little weak (should have started it much earlier and reduced it a lot more) and kinda purple (neat!) because of the cabbage, but there's 6 cups of chicken stock I don't have to buy. Wild rice soup or risotto or into the freezer with you! Did add some tarragon, but NO green onions.

I'll add those later.

Ahhhh, Facebook.

You win.

Adam Wiznals on FB

Hey Fam!

R and I are talking about going to SoCal for the week of Xmas and then off to England for New Year's. She's got a conference in London from Jan 7th-11th at the Globe.

It's all very tentative right now, but we might fly into Manchester(?) on the 30th and then travel south the next week, alighting in London by the 6th.

R would fly out of London on the 11th/12th, but if work is treating me well, I might stay on in London again past the 11th.

Anyhow's, if you're over there: get ready! If you're over *here*: want to go with? :-)

"It's not rocket science...."

A growing number of people in the world eating a shrinking number of fish. "...we are hitting up against the capacity of the planet to provide for us..."

h/t to the Dish

adding:

We are in a war against fish. And we are winning.

6000 years of marriage madness...

Full of swear words and hysterical hypocrisy


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFkeKKszXTw

H/T to Le Blanc on Facebook

Eepybird post-it notes

Just saw these guys again at Maker's Faire doing their Diet Coke and Mentos thing. (mmmMMMmmm. Diet Coke.)

here's their "other big thing":

http://www.vimeo.com/1700732?pg=embed&sec=1700732

Walter Speaks

Terminator bad

Wolverine really bad

Up is an excellent adventure movie from Pixar, with stunning animation, and another group of fun and interesting characters. They balance humor,adventure, and real human emotions like no other. Awesome movie. I'm seeing it again...

Drag Me to Hell is Evil Dead with a budget. The movie is literally insane; a B horror schlock crossed with a looney tunes cartoon. And I mean all of that in the best way possible. Many scenes had me jumping out of my seat either in fear or grossed out of my mind.

Didn't keep his first two reviews. Maybe I'll get copies of them from someone...

Way of the World soundtrack

Loved the play? Want the music? Here ya go....

That's 17 songs out of the 23 songs and 1 sound effect that Rebecca has on her WotW soundtrack... everything that's available in iTunes. The rest would be:

Comfortably Numb - Scissor Sisters
Common People - William Shatner
It's Alright - Supertramp
L'amour avec un con - Adrian Pauly
Les Histoires d'Amours - Rita Mitsuko
Sparkling Diamonds from Moulin Rouge
'Horse and Cart' sound effect


Update: I think "The Fear" is my favorite song. Here's the video. Video is... meh... but the lyrics to the song are pretty cool.

Seriously easy home-baked bread

I've intended to make more bread at home, but never seem to get
around to it. No more excuses! Bill pointed me to:

http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/

zomg! Finally tried this. Sooooo easy and very good.

Got the basic recipe from the NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/21/dining/211brex.html

I made mine with 4c white, 2c wheat and 0.5c spelt. I forgot the salt. Next time!

Bread for dinner, 3 more loaves worth of dough in the 'fridge.

woo-hoo!

In summary...

Obama's Hundred Days on Facebook

Astonishing stunt cyclist

I kept thinking: This has got to be special effects...

H/T to Cousin Jim

Super-slo-mo is the best

Myth Busters rocket sled car crash.

H/T to Bad Astronomy

I kept thinking Batman would show up...

This short film by Adam Berg was created to show off the new Philips Cinema 21:9 LCD TV. More here.

H/T to the Dish. Always the Dish.

So, it wasn't IBM, but...

... Sun got chewed up by someone. Not sure what that does to my world. More news as events warrant...

Bill - you and I work for the same company now?! (update3: oh, duh! you work at Cisco...)

Update:

Mercury News: My first thought was "IBM tried to offer below the $9.50/share bare minimum and the deal broke up. Oracle is then able to offer *just* the bare minimum and get the deal." Still, the $/share price for the deal was well above where Sun was trading...

Guardian: call's it a goof for IBM to have passed on it

Reuters: it surprised Microsoft, so I guess I shouldn't feel *too* far out of the loop.

Update 2:

Overall, I think it's probably good for the company, good for the customers, good for the stock price and bad for me. WLG sends this tidbit:

"But its (Sun's) gross margins on hardware remain high, so maybe if
you blow out the company’s operating infrastructure quickly you can
make the numbers work."

Yup, I'm kinda in the "operating infrastructure" world.

Update 3: Oh, dear. I'm afraid this is what I'm thinking, too.

Astronomy Camping - Jan 2009

Trying to do at least an overnight camping trip each month this year. To kick it off, me 'n' Sarge 'n' Neighbor Ed went to the Chabot Space and Science Center for the day/evening and car-camped at Chabot Park.


Highly recommend the Chabot observatory/astronomy center. Also, the park experience was much better than the last time I was there (2003). I think our campground was #21, away from the crowds and overlooking the lake. Very nice.
For stargazing, tho', a complete bust. Fogged in from Sat. noon to Sun. dawn, so: no observatory time at the science center and no stargazing at our campsite. Ah, well. I'll be looking for a full moon hike in the Bay Area this summer...

Porch Camping - Feb 2009

I'd intended to get dropped off a few miles up the road from Bear Valley, sleep in one of the campgrounds and then snow shoe back in the morning. (oooooh, brand new snow shoes....) It'll have to wait 'til next year. I needed to be at the cabin that first night to help set up 'n' stuff, so... next time!

But, I brought my tent along and did a "gear check" for winter snow camping. Yup. Stayed plenty warm overnight on the porch of the cabin. My S-in-L thought I was crazy for doing it, but with 4 boys under the age of 7 *inside* the cabin, I probably got more sleep than anyone else.... :-)

Bike camping - April 2009

Dawdled around in the AM, since I was trekking on my own. Started at 9:30am. The plan was to go from San Mateo, up to Skyway, then down to Butano State Park. (Roughly like this.) Originally, I'd talked about going "around the Northern horn" (up to Daly City and then down the coast), but after Rebecca suggested this alternate, I decided harsh uphill+some downhill would be better than constant in-your-face headwinds along the coast. I may have been wrong. I'm a slow rider to start with, but this took awhile...

Carried all the gear I would need for overnight camping: tent, stove, hiking clothes, dinner food for 2, etc. Rebecca would meet me up at the campground with her gear and breakfast.

9:30 - 6 miles - backtracked to change route to head more south (Laurelwood to 92 instead of Hillsdale); some steep, short uphills in San Mateo to get the day started.

10:30 - 10 miles - onto Canada, great riding, lots of Team in Training folks out, great views along Crystal Spring reservoirs (San Andreas fault).

11:30 - 4 miles - stopped in Woodside awhile, headed up Old La Honda. Very steep, to *me*, anyway.

12:30 - 2 miles - More time off the bike than on it. Would've been faster to walk the bike up some of this. Lots of encouragement from other bikers. OLH Road is a popular training climb. "Average climbers will take 30-40 minutes to complete the climb..." Bwhahahah! I have a long, long way before I'm average. Or even a total novice. I'll try this route a few more times this summer, get a better feel for climbing.

1:30 - 7 miles - Up and over! Glorious 20min downhill run. A real roller coaster ride (if roller coasters had oncoming traffic and limb-threatening gravel patches), worth the price of admission. Lunch and rest outside little market in La Honda.

2:30 - 3 miles - More grind and stop. Getting close.

3:30 - 10 miles - Best hour: from a creek-accompanied mountain town to the windswept coastal farmland flats.

4:30 - 5 miles - Took my time on the last 3 road miles, enjoying the day. Last challenge: better part of a mile uphill into the camp. Ouch. Nearly walked my bike up the last bit. Set up camp, walked around a bit, stretched a lot. Butano seems like a great place to car camp, all redwoods and creeks.

Rebecca showed up and we had dinner, listened to Cub Scouts do skits across the road, spent a chilly night in the woods.

Sunday morning: we had breakfast, hiked for a couple hours, stopped into lovely and super-cool Pescadero for lunch.

47 slow miles, but a great weekend.

Today's hysterical video

"We didn't start the flame war" - language def. not safe for work. Or for many humans that don't talk like a truck driving sailor.

Seriously, the language is a couple steps past "salty".

H/T to Dish

Ooooooh! Sexy....

The Aptera 2 Series vehicle (electric and hybrid)

H/T to alert F-in-L

IT BURNS!

Painfully hypnotic. Watch it so you can suffer along with me....

Earworm warning

*humming* doo doo doo doo-dee doo....

H/T The Dish