![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
...with Sandra Bullock: funny and sweet - a great romantic comedy which men & women are likely to both enjoy. I laughed. I cried. I laughed some more. This is the first movie in a long time which I thought was worth the price (including some $3 rentals of so-called "excellent" pictures). I paid $5.50 for a matinee :) A great movie at twice the price.
June 29th, 2009
June 26th, 2009
Just enough sunshine yesterday to finally get out and ride! I almost forgot how, it's been so rainy.
*thankful* for the bright, albeit temporary...
*thankful* for the bright, albeit temporary...
June 24th, 2009
So I'm looking to buy some bulk rope for doing my own drum repairs, but do not know the technical name / description for the exact sort of rope I want. There's lots of people out there selling "drum rope", but I want to be as informed as possible when making selections. Anyone out there have the answer?
June 17th, 2009
Someone suggested that I'd make a great patent attorney... technical, language-persnickety, detail-oriented... interesting idea. Question is: does this make any sense at all to START as I near age 40?
I've been writing embedded software for hire since I was 22 and 3/4. I'm 38 and 1/2 now... that's about 16 years for this career so far.
I've been writing embedded software for hire since I was 22 and 3/4. I'm 38 and 1/2 now... that's about 16 years for this career so far.
June 10th, 2009
Seen in the Berkshires of Westachusetts a couple of weeks ago...
(yes, I was wearing pants)
(Body Art by Shara Osgood)
(yes, I was wearing pants)
(Body Art by Shara Osgood)
May 18th, 2009
Thank you, Sony Fraud Protection, for calling me today.
Them: "Do you authorize this laptop computer to be sent to X in Y, South Carolina?"
Me: "I absolute did NOT"
Them: "Ok, we'll cancel the order. You probably want to call your credit card company"
Me: "Yup".
Turns out somebody stole my credit card number a few days ago and has been on a minor shopping spree... Discover, my favorite card, made the disputed charges disappear right away and will investigate the fraud for me. Discover is great. They have always been very helpful on those rare occasions I have trouble... and at least once it's been they who have called me about a suspicious charge. Why didn't they call me before Sony did? Well, Sony hadn't completed the order yet... so it was still in the "authorization" stage. Anyway, I would have noticed soon enough - I always keep my receipts, enter them into my accounting software, and compare the statements with my own records every month.
Record keeping - it's what's for dinner. And record shredding - it's what's for dessert. I shred my receipts after I'm done checking them against my statements.
I once caught a mis-processed check this way. I had a tiny charge left over from a canceled service - 64 cents - for which I wrote a check. The check got processed for 64 dollars, not cents. I noticed. I called the bank. Got it all worked out quickly enough. Knowing what it should have been: priceless.
So for this credit card, a minor inconvenience - a few automatic bills appear on it, so I'll have to call them with new info when the new card comes. Other than that, no big deal.
Them: "Do you authorize this laptop computer to be sent to X in Y, South Carolina?"
Me: "I absolute did NOT"
Them: "Ok, we'll cancel the order. You probably want to call your credit card company"
Me: "Yup".
Turns out somebody stole my credit card number a few days ago and has been on a minor shopping spree... Discover, my favorite card, made the disputed charges disappear right away and will investigate the fraud for me. Discover is great. They have always been very helpful on those rare occasions I have trouble... and at least once it's been they who have called me about a suspicious charge. Why didn't they call me before Sony did? Well, Sony hadn't completed the order yet... so it was still in the "authorization" stage. Anyway, I would have noticed soon enough - I always keep my receipts, enter them into my accounting software, and compare the statements with my own records every month.
Record keeping - it's what's for dinner. And record shredding - it's what's for dessert. I shred my receipts after I'm done checking them against my statements.
I once caught a mis-processed check this way. I had a tiny charge left over from a canceled service - 64 cents - for which I wrote a check. The check got processed for 64 dollars, not cents. I noticed. I called the bank. Got it all worked out quickly enough. Knowing what it should have been: priceless.
So for this credit card, a minor inconvenience - a few automatic bills appear on it, so I'll have to call them with new info when the new card comes. Other than that, no big deal.
May 6th, 2009
The best bread pretzels ever: cooked at 900F in 2 minutes, last thursday night.
I learned that yes, you can cook with the coals still in the oven, if you let them settle a little and you bank them to the sides and keep them a good 2" or so from the thing you're cooking. This also lets you cook for much longer. Thursday, we turned 5# of dough into pretzels... over the course of a good two hours. The oven was at 900 when we started and at about 450 when it was done. The hottest-baked pretzels were by far the best, though the other ones weren't bad... they just weren't WOW like the 2-minute ones. I wonder if they bake up quicker / taller in the high heat... maybe the air pockets expand wider before the dough has a chance to set and thus the products are fluffier... There may be other factors, too, like moisture retention - searing in the water at those high temps, keeping them from drying as much as they would at lower temps.
I also took some measurements of the outside surface of the oven during firing and during baking. The spot I measured got as hot as 250F at one point... but this tells me that the whole thing could hold a LOT more heat if I wanted it to. I mean, the INSIDE of the oven was well over 1000F towards the end of the firing cycle. If the outside is only 250, that means there is a huge gradient across the mass of the oven walls. . . and an impressive heat capacity which is only just beginning to be tapped.
I also learned that I may want to do the fire in two phases. The first phase is a fire in the middle/front to establish some coals and get the thing hot enough that it will draft itself when pushed back away from the oven mouth. The second phase will be to spread those coals out to the oven walls and use them to start localized fires there in a big U-shape, with the middle of the oven vacant. This will heat the walls more directly than having a fire in the middle of the oven floor. Hotter walls = longer cooking time at hotter temps.
I did start an official oven journal book - including copying in my notes from the first two firings the previous week. Measurements, ideas, lessons, it's all in there. With any luck at all, I'll figure out how to use this thing :)
It has been very interesting to change my relationship to cooking from "turn on oven, cook, turn off oven" to "plan the baking session, start the fire, tend the fire, cook hottest things, cook hot things, cook cooler things..., rake out coals". The whole process takes 3-5 hours, depending on what's going on. It slows one down to the speed of an earlier age. I kinda like it. Of course, it does eliminate a certain spontaneity.
Hey - here's a good question: what's the best way to get hardwood into thick sticks? The oven is way too small to use "logs" or even "split firewood". I've been using pine scraps from my workshop (which is now nearly devoid of pine scraps), but I want to change over to hard wood and anyway, I'm almost out of scraps. The oven likes wood that's maybe 10" long and no more than 1.5" thick. Bigger than that makes it hard to lay the fire because all machinations must be performed from the front doorway. I suppose I could just buy an axe and shave down ordinary cordwood, but this seems like a lot of effort. Is there a better way? Power log splitters - the ones I've seen anyway - don't seem to be geared for this small scale. What do people use for wood stoves? That's about the scale I'm thinking.
--
EDIT: Actually something like this looks like it would do the trick. I'd have to run the split-off pieces through a few times to cut them down to a useful width, but I think it might solve the problem nicely. The foot-action lets you gently get the wedge (a close-up on another page shows it has a very sharp blade, not just a welded triangle) to the wood where you want it, and then you stomp away a few times and there ya go.
I learned that yes, you can cook with the coals still in the oven, if you let them settle a little and you bank them to the sides and keep them a good 2" or so from the thing you're cooking. This also lets you cook for much longer. Thursday, we turned 5# of dough into pretzels... over the course of a good two hours. The oven was at 900 when we started and at about 450 when it was done. The hottest-baked pretzels were by far the best, though the other ones weren't bad... they just weren't WOW like the 2-minute ones. I wonder if they bake up quicker / taller in the high heat... maybe the air pockets expand wider before the dough has a chance to set and thus the products are fluffier... There may be other factors, too, like moisture retention - searing in the water at those high temps, keeping them from drying as much as they would at lower temps.
I also took some measurements of the outside surface of the oven during firing and during baking. The spot I measured got as hot as 250F at one point... but this tells me that the whole thing could hold a LOT more heat if I wanted it to. I mean, the INSIDE of the oven was well over 1000F towards the end of the firing cycle. If the outside is only 250, that means there is a huge gradient across the mass of the oven walls. . . and an impressive heat capacity which is only just beginning to be tapped.
I also learned that I may want to do the fire in two phases. The first phase is a fire in the middle/front to establish some coals and get the thing hot enough that it will draft itself when pushed back away from the oven mouth. The second phase will be to spread those coals out to the oven walls and use them to start localized fires there in a big U-shape, with the middle of the oven vacant. This will heat the walls more directly than having a fire in the middle of the oven floor. Hotter walls = longer cooking time at hotter temps.
I did start an official oven journal book - including copying in my notes from the first two firings the previous week. Measurements, ideas, lessons, it's all in there. With any luck at all, I'll figure out how to use this thing :)
It has been very interesting to change my relationship to cooking from "turn on oven, cook, turn off oven" to "plan the baking session, start the fire, tend the fire, cook hottest things, cook hot things, cook cooler things..., rake out coals". The whole process takes 3-5 hours, depending on what's going on. It slows one down to the speed of an earlier age. I kinda like it. Of course, it does eliminate a certain spontaneity.
Hey - here's a good question: what's the best way to get hardwood into thick sticks? The oven is way too small to use "logs" or even "split firewood". I've been using pine scraps from my workshop (which is now nearly devoid of pine scraps), but I want to change over to hard wood and anyway, I'm almost out of scraps. The oven likes wood that's maybe 10" long and no more than 1.5" thick. Bigger than that makes it hard to lay the fire because all machinations must be performed from the front doorway. I suppose I could just buy an axe and shave down ordinary cordwood, but this seems like a lot of effort. Is there a better way? Power log splitters - the ones I've seen anyway - don't seem to be geared for this small scale. What do people use for wood stoves? That's about the scale I'm thinking.
--
EDIT: Actually something like this looks like it would do the trick. I'd have to run the split-off pieces through a few times to cut them down to a useful width, but I think it might solve the problem nicely. The foot-action lets you gently get the wedge (a close-up on another page shows it has a very sharp blade, not just a welded triangle) to the wood where you want it, and then you stomp away a few times and there ya go.
May 3rd, 2009
April 28th, 2009
... we were driving home tonight and passed a road crew who were clearing trees, presumably for widening the road or maybe to build some drainage system or some-such. The machine they were using to remove the trees was this mean-looking thing that for all the world looked like some kind of monster. It tore up the trees with mighty jaws which could just as well have been King Kong holding Fay Wray... only no gentle giant this. It looked violent. G took one glance at the scene and said, simply, "ow". And then I felt the ripped tree's death cry, too.
And then I took a look along the side of the road, opposite where this was going on. There were plenty of trees there, too... these did not appear to be in harm's way but nevertheless the sense of "ow" was definitely with them, too. For miles. That was the astonishing part. How did they know? Could they feel their brothers and sisters being ripped from the ground? Did the Earth communicate knowledge of the violence to them? Have I totally lost my mind?
And then I took a look along the side of the road, opposite where this was going on. There were plenty of trees there, too... these did not appear to be in harm's way but nevertheless the sense of "ow" was definitely with them, too. For miles. That was the astonishing part. How did they know? Could they feel their brothers and sisters being ripped from the ground? Did the Earth communicate knowledge of the violence to them? Have I totally lost my mind?
April 27th, 2009
So... now that I have this thing, anybody want to come over and bake pizza at 650+ and breads and such? Cookies, too, when the oven is too cold for bread (by which I mean 350F). I fully intended to have people visit to use the oven once it was ready. Now it's ready! It's actually quite a nice way to spend an afternoon... sit by the fire for a few hours, stoking it and chatting, or just gazing at the flames. Then, several rounds of slide-it-in, watch-it-go, slide-it-out, roll it over, lay it down, and do it again. Then a feast!
Seriously - anyone interested in having a bake day should send me an email. Username at gmail.com.
Today, I had some toaster-oven-reheated pizza from yesterday's bake. It was still completely wonderful. Evidently, whatever the je ne sais quoi which makes furnace-cooked bread taste so good is not lost on a day in the fridge. I wonder if such baked goods will freeze well and still be as yummy. I'm thinking yes, though with the expected degradation that freezing brings to most things.
I plan to start a log book of what's been baked, what techniques have worked well or poorly, etc, to help perfect the process.
After all the baking on Sunday, the oven temp settled at about 300+ and was there for a while. I'm thinking that the oven body got to be about that hot and that's where it radiated, once the fire was gone. The 650+ was hot air from the just-recently-removed fire but was not being sustained by the oven walls, hence the quick drop. So, I learn that firing the oven at 800F for 90 minutes gets it hot enough to cook a few things super quick and then some more things slowly. Maybe next time, stoke the fire hotter or longer. Time for another temperature probe... one for the outside surface of the oven. That should give a rough indication of how thoroughly heated it is.
Who knows, perhaps the geek in me will invest $120 in a pair of thermocouple adapters for my data collection widget and then I'll have science experiments!
Seriously - anyone interested in having a bake day should send me an email. Username at gmail.com.
Today, I had some toaster-oven-reheated pizza from yesterday's bake. It was still completely wonderful. Evidently, whatever the je ne sais quoi which makes furnace-cooked bread taste so good is not lost on a day in the fridge. I wonder if such baked goods will freeze well and still be as yummy. I'm thinking yes, though with the expected degradation that freezing brings to most things.
I plan to start a log book of what's been baked, what techniques have worked well or poorly, etc, to help perfect the process.
After all the baking on Sunday, the oven temp settled at about 300+ and was there for a while. I'm thinking that the oven body got to be about that hot and that's where it radiated, once the fire was gone. The 650+ was hot air from the just-recently-removed fire but was not being sustained by the oven walls, hence the quick drop. So, I learn that firing the oven at 800F for 90 minutes gets it hot enough to cook a few things super quick and then some more things slowly. Maybe next time, stoke the fire hotter or longer. Time for another temperature probe... one for the outside surface of the oven. That should give a rough indication of how thoroughly heated it is.
Who knows, perhaps the geek in me will invest $120 in a pair of thermocouple adapters for my data collection widget and then I'll have science experiments!
A lovely day today - back to my 36-mile fitness rides in the great outdoors! Yeah!
Winter indoor training paid off. I'm only a little bit sore and managed the 2h+ ride with only one short break.
Winter indoor training paid off. I'm only a little bit sore and managed the 2h+ ride with only one short break.
April 26th, 2009
April 23rd, 2009
April 22nd, 2009
April 20th, 2009
Out of context quote for the evening: "Bending over doesn't mean 'stop'.... 'avocado' does."
April 17th, 2009
an open window
a fresh spring zephyr comes through
winter: gone at last
--
DBS 2009-04-17
a fresh spring zephyr comes through
winter: gone at last
--
DBS 2009-04-17
April 16th, 2009
The top slab is now poured!
What you can't see: the cement board which is the bottom of the form, the two T-braces (you can see part of one) and shims which are keeping the cement board level.
Remaining steps:
1. Lay fire bricks on top of slab (after slab cures)
2. Build clay oven on top of brix!
(3 - build fire, make bread, cook, eat!)
What you can't see: the cement board which is the bottom of the form, the two T-braces (you can see part of one) and shims which are keeping the cement board level.
Remaining steps:
1. Lay fire bricks on top of slab (after slab cures)
2. Build clay oven on top of brix!
(3 - build fire, make bread, cook, eat!)
April 15th, 2009
April 12th, 2009
yeah, kinda...
| You Are a Snow Leopard |
 You are understand the world better than most people you know. You are very perceptive and intuitive. You need lots of space to think. If you don't get the space you need, you're likely to bite someone's head off. Because you are so thoughtful and solitary, people find you to be intense and mysterious. You're even seen as intimidating. |
April 11th, 2009
Misty and cold? A perfect day to install a roof! The estimate on whether the left-over shingles in the basement were enough to cover this new roof was off by a little bit... which is to say, by the time I was on the last course of shingles, I was using every little scrap bigger than 3" wide I could find. This resulted in a not-quite-as-beautiful-as-I-could-have-m
Some of the shingles are a little bent from sitting in a pile in the basement for a few years. It's cool today (about 45F), so the natural tendency of the shingles to settle down with gravity is confounded by their stiffness in the cold. The next warm day should see them lying flat.
The astute among you will notice there are five sets of rafters in this photo but only 3 sets in the previous one. I tied the end rafters to the penultimate ones using some blocking. No stiffening ribs, but yes screws :)
What's next? Create the forms for the pour-in-place top slab. I have realized that I do NOT want to anchor the top slab to the box. Why not? Well, it's gonna weigh a few hundred pounds on its own, before the oven, so there's no reason to think it will go anywhere, what with all that friction against the tops of the cinder blocks. Secondly, if the intense heat of the oven actually does cause the slab to expand a little, there needs to be some way to accommodate the expansion. Cementing the slab to the top of the blocks does not expansion accommodation make.
The forms are uncomplicated to make. What I really need are a few days where the temp will be consistently above freezing. Sadly, though it's the middle of April (and I have the daffodils to prove it), we are still having near-freezing or freezing nights from time to time. We're having a cold snap at present and are not due for above-freezing nights til the latter part of next week. When I have 48 hours of above-freezing temps, I can pour the top slab and continue. I can build the forms any time and probably will get that done sooner rather than later.
Some of the shingles are a little bent from sitting in a pile in the basement for a few years. It's cool today (about 45F), so the natural tendency of the shingles to settle down with gravity is confounded by their stiffness in the cold. The next warm day should see them lying flat.
The astute among you will notice there are five sets of rafters in this photo but only 3 sets in the previous one. I tied the end rafters to the penultimate ones using some blocking. No stiffening ribs, but yes screws :)
What's next? Create the forms for the pour-in-place top slab. I have realized that I do NOT want to anchor the top slab to the box. Why not? Well, it's gonna weigh a few hundred pounds on its own, before the oven, so there's no reason to think it will go anywhere, what with all that friction against the tops of the cinder blocks. Secondly, if the intense heat of the oven actually does cause the slab to expand a little, there needs to be some way to accommodate the expansion. Cementing the slab to the top of the blocks does not expansion accommodation make.
The forms are uncomplicated to make. What I really need are a few days where the temp will be consistently above freezing. Sadly, though it's the middle of April (and I have the daffodils to prove it), we are still having near-freezing or freezing nights from time to time. We're having a cold snap at present and are not due for above-freezing nights til the latter part of next week. When I have 48 hours of above-freezing temps, I can pour the top slab and continue. I can build the forms any time and probably will get that done sooner rather than later.
I wonder if my neighbors, who can clearly see this thing taking shape, have the slightest idea what it might be... or, more interestingly, perhaps, what might they think it is?