This morning, in a fit of conscientiousness, I calculated my carbon footprint. I've calculated it before, using the calculator on the UC Berkeley, when I was in my first Environmental Studies class at UCSD. My carbon footprint has gone up, somewhat significantly, because I've since flown a few times this year, to San Francisco, to Barcelona and London (a circle trip), and Roatan. My footprint was, for the previous year, something far below the average for the industrialized world, but appears to have moved up into the average for industrial nations, though still far below the average for the United States.
The calculator I used this morning is located here:
http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
The calculator at Berkeley is here:
http://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/carboncalculator
I have not gone back to recalculate my former footprint (though I suppose I could dig and look for records in my class notes), but considering I had made only (should I really phrase it "only"?) a single transoceanic flight in each of the previous few years, I don't think it's all that terrible for my lifetime thus far (though I realize that many people in the United States do not have the means to travel extensively).
Well, it's time for me to go back to bed and finish sleeping.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Community Choice Energy
This morning, I attended a meeting with three San Diego groups: SanDiego350, Sierra Club San Diego, Friends of San Diego Clean Energy, and the San Diego Chapter of the California Solar Energy Industries Association. In attendance were about a hundred people. The morning was opened by a short welcome from San Diego 350.org's Bob Braaton, who essentially "witnessed" to us his epiphany when he came face to face with a hummingbird in his back yard.
Todd Gloria told us how he took his temporary mayoral role (after Bob Filner's scandalous vacating of the position) to push forward an environmental agenda, including hiring Nicole Capretz and charging her with putting together a Climate Action Plan for the City of San Diego. It was high time such an action was taken, and the audience demonstrated its approval. There were four other speakers, I believe, though their names escape me at this moment. The last speaker was a woman, Shawn Marshall, who is one of the founders of Marin Clean Energy. She used to hold a government position, and in that position, she helped move Marin County forward in its adoption of clean, renewable energy providers. It was heartening.
Before the start of the morning session, I ate several blueberries and a strawberry. I also drank two cups of coffee, which kept me going, as the tea I'd been drinking with breakfast was red tea and therefore caffeine-free. Between the fruit and yogurt that I'd eaten for breakfast and the coffee, I was pretty good all morning. I still need to try a recipe for coffee with butter, though. Yes, it sounds strange, but the person who published the recipe swears by it, as it keeps her energy level steady all morning and into the afternoon. I'm not sure if I'd want to skip lunch, but if it allowed her to postpone lunch to get things done during her morning, all the more power to her, I say.
Of course, at the end of the morning, folks helped put things away. Some people (including myself) were given packages of food to take home. I was given about a half dozen assorted bagels: whole wheat, plain, sesame, cranberry, and asiago cheese. I brought the box home and put them on the kitchen counter for K to eat, as I'm still avoiding excessive carbohydrate consumption.
I walked to Park Boulevard and waited for a few minutes for the bus. I then decided to walk to the nearest bus stop where the 20 bus goes, which was the one after City College on Eleventh Avenue.
On the ride home, I dozed several times, waking when we'd reached Fashion Valley, and again when we'd reached Kearny Mesa Transit Center. I closed my eyes and rested them until we had reached the northeast corner of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar (near the Carroll Canyon Road exit from the 15). I managed to keep my eyes open until I got off the bus and walked the rest of the way home.
I made myself a frittata with shiitakes, a handful of fresh basil, and Danish feta cheese. No additional seasonings were needed, as the feta made the frittata plenty salty and the basil provided a nice counterbalance to it. Since then, I've been trying to think of things to bake (though we're really full-up on cookies right now). I was thinking banana bread, since we have a bunch and a half and they're all perfectly ripe now, and are starting to become too ripe to eat. Perfect baking bananas. Since we already have the banana cookies we'd made last Sunday, K doesn't want to make more cookies. What else can one make with ripe bananas?
I just found (another) recipe for banana bread, but this one is "paleo," meaning no wheat, but rather coconut flour, almond flour, and almond butter (though I think we'll substitute peanut butter this time).
Any ideas out there for banana recipes besides bread and Foster?
Todd Gloria told us how he took his temporary mayoral role (after Bob Filner's scandalous vacating of the position) to push forward an environmental agenda, including hiring Nicole Capretz and charging her with putting together a Climate Action Plan for the City of San Diego. It was high time such an action was taken, and the audience demonstrated its approval. There were four other speakers, I believe, though their names escape me at this moment. The last speaker was a woman, Shawn Marshall, who is one of the founders of Marin Clean Energy. She used to hold a government position, and in that position, she helped move Marin County forward in its adoption of clean, renewable energy providers. It was heartening.
Before the start of the morning session, I ate several blueberries and a strawberry. I also drank two cups of coffee, which kept me going, as the tea I'd been drinking with breakfast was red tea and therefore caffeine-free. Between the fruit and yogurt that I'd eaten for breakfast and the coffee, I was pretty good all morning. I still need to try a recipe for coffee with butter, though. Yes, it sounds strange, but the person who published the recipe swears by it, as it keeps her energy level steady all morning and into the afternoon. I'm not sure if I'd want to skip lunch, but if it allowed her to postpone lunch to get things done during her morning, all the more power to her, I say.
Of course, at the end of the morning, folks helped put things away. Some people (including myself) were given packages of food to take home. I was given about a half dozen assorted bagels: whole wheat, plain, sesame, cranberry, and asiago cheese. I brought the box home and put them on the kitchen counter for K to eat, as I'm still avoiding excessive carbohydrate consumption.
I walked to Park Boulevard and waited for a few minutes for the bus. I then decided to walk to the nearest bus stop where the 20 bus goes, which was the one after City College on Eleventh Avenue.
On the ride home, I dozed several times, waking when we'd reached Fashion Valley, and again when we'd reached Kearny Mesa Transit Center. I closed my eyes and rested them until we had reached the northeast corner of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar (near the Carroll Canyon Road exit from the 15). I managed to keep my eyes open until I got off the bus and walked the rest of the way home.
I made myself a frittata with shiitakes, a handful of fresh basil, and Danish feta cheese. No additional seasonings were needed, as the feta made the frittata plenty salty and the basil provided a nice counterbalance to it. Since then, I've been trying to think of things to bake (though we're really full-up on cookies right now). I was thinking banana bread, since we have a bunch and a half and they're all perfectly ripe now, and are starting to become too ripe to eat. Perfect baking bananas. Since we already have the banana cookies we'd made last Sunday, K doesn't want to make more cookies. What else can one make with ripe bananas?
I just found (another) recipe for banana bread, but this one is "paleo," meaning no wheat, but rather coconut flour, almond flour, and almond butter (though I think we'll substitute peanut butter this time).
Any ideas out there for banana recipes besides bread and Foster?
Friday, June 20, 2014
Oatmeal Cookies with Golden Raisins and Cranberries
Ingredients:
1/2 c. light brown sugar
.25 lb. unsalted butter, softened (important that it's at room temperature)
1 t. salt
2 t. baking powder
1 t. ground cinnamon
2 t. vanilla extract
1 jumbo (or 2 large) egg
1.25 c. whole wheat flour
.25 c. golden raisins, chopped roughly
.25 c. cranberries, chopped roughly
1.5 c. rolled oats (not the quick-cook variety
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Beat butter on high speed in a stand mixer until fluffy (I didn't think butter would ever look "fluffy," but it actually lightens in color and does gain volume!). Add sugar and mix on medium-high speed, scraping the bowl a couple of times to make sure everything combines. Add egg and vanilla extract, beating well after each addition.
Sift together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Add in three sections to wet ingredients, scraping the bowl between.
Add raisins and cranberries, and mix well. Stir in rolled oats. Some of the oats may not completely incorporate, but the baked oats taste good as a crunchy snack, anyway.
Scoop by tablespoonfuls onto silicone-lined baking sheet. The batter will be stiff enough to make pretty "tall" cookies.
Bake for about 14 minutes.
Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for one minute before removing to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Makes about two and a half dozen cookies.
1/2 c. light brown sugar
.25 lb. unsalted butter, softened (important that it's at room temperature)
1 t. salt
2 t. baking powder
1 t. ground cinnamon
2 t. vanilla extract
1 jumbo (or 2 large) egg
1.25 c. whole wheat flour
.25 c. golden raisins, chopped roughly
.25 c. cranberries, chopped roughly
1.5 c. rolled oats (not the quick-cook variety
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Beat butter on high speed in a stand mixer until fluffy (I didn't think butter would ever look "fluffy," but it actually lightens in color and does gain volume!). Add sugar and mix on medium-high speed, scraping the bowl a couple of times to make sure everything combines. Add egg and vanilla extract, beating well after each addition.
Sift together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Add in three sections to wet ingredients, scraping the bowl between.
Add raisins and cranberries, and mix well. Stir in rolled oats. Some of the oats may not completely incorporate, but the baked oats taste good as a crunchy snack, anyway.
Scoop by tablespoonfuls onto silicone-lined baking sheet. The batter will be stiff enough to make pretty "tall" cookies.
Bake for about 14 minutes.
Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for one minute before removing to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Makes about two and a half dozen cookies.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies with Browned Butter and Mascarpone
Experiment
du jour:
1/2
lb. browned butter
about
1/2-3/4 c. brown sugar
8 oz.
mascarpone cheese at room temperature
about
2 tsp almond extract
about
2 tsp vanilla extract
1
jumbo egg
2 tsp
baking powder
1 tsp
salt
2 1/4
c. whole wheat flour
3/4
c. walnuts, chopped finely
about
1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
Beat
butter, mascarpone, and sugar. Add egg while continuing to run the
mixer. With mixer still running at low-to medium speed, add extracts
and salt and mix until all the wet ingredients are cooled and
well-incorporated. Add flour, 3/4 c. at a time, scraping after each
addition, adding the baking powder with the last 3/4 cup addition.
Turn
off mixer and remove bowl. Add nuts and chips, and stir
thoroughly.
Drop
by rounded teaspoonfuls on silicone-lined baking sheet, leaving about
two inch spaces between.
Bake
in preheated 375ยบ F. oven for
about 11-13 minutes, until cookies start to brown on top (they will
sizzle as they bake).
Remove
from oven and allow to cool on baking sheet for one minute before
cooling completely on rack.
The USPS Needs a Good Kick in the Pants
No kidding, I can hear you say aloud, reading the title. Well, as it turns out, PayPal will NOT refund my money through its Buyers' Protection Program because the USPS failed to update the status of my package that I'd mailed on 5 May (that's LAST month) after it'd accepted it for delivery. I suppose most people don't bother checking on outgoing packages, and most of them arrive unmolested. However, when a package has money riding on it, you bet I'm going to certify its mailing, and the PO had better NOT LOSE TRACK OF IT. The customer rep on the phone at PayPal said that there was nothing he, personally, could do, as the information needed is from the PO, and the PO appears to be playing f*cking games:
Thank you for contacting the United States Postal Service.
You have reached the office of the Consumer Advocate. Our normal business hours are: 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST, Monday through Friday. If you have contacted us during normal business hours, we will respond to your inquiry as quickly as possible. However, if you have contacted us outside of normal business hours or on a Federal observed holiday, we will respond on the following business day.
As an alternative, you may contact our Customer Care Center at 1-800-ASK-USPS (800-275-8777). The Customer Care Center hours of operation are: Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m.-8:30 p.m. EST and Saturdays, 8:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m. EST
And this after I'd written back that I need some kind of resolution:
In order to better serve you, your recently submitted inquiry was forwarded to an office that is better suited to address your needs. It is being investigated and you can expect a reply within 2 to 4 business days
And this:
Thank you for contacting the United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General Hotline. The OIG Hotline was established to provide stakeholders, US Postal Service employees, and the American public with a confidential means of reporting incidences of suspicious activity to the OIG concerning fraud, waste, abuse, and misconduct within the US Postal Service.
While we can't guarantee we can recover lost money or items, your information can help alert Investigators to problem areas and possibly prevent others from being victimized. Your concern has been received and documented in our database. If additional information is necessary, someone will contact you.
-----Original Message-----
From: Nancy Yuen [mailto:nancyuen@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, June 09, 2014 9:26 PM
To: Hotline Mailbox
Subject: delivery status update
I need delivery confirmation for the following package:
9514800024804125000115
I require confirmation of delivery because I am awaiting a refund for that returned package. Since the USPS had accepted the package from me for delivery, I will hold USPS responsible for the refund should I not receive it from the vendor, who denies having received it.
So I'm phoning the Rancho Bernardo office this morning to see what kind of answer I can get out of these federally-paid weasels.
What was the phrase Melissa Ethridge used?
"...survival is easy but satisfaction is rough..."
Indeed, rough to obtain, even in the age of almost instantaneous information retrieval and the lightning-speed of the Internet.
So the best I can get is satisfaction at helping the PO better its ways so as to prevent other victims of its horrendous treatment of certified postal packages? I'm waiting for the Rancho Bernardo office to open in a couple hours now (actually, less than that now)...
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
The Beginning of a Great Adventure
I love that song by Lou Reed. In fact, I enjoy that entire album, named for the city in which I lived the summer it was introduced into my life, which was 1991. That was the summer I interned at the Insurance Services Office, located in World Trade Center 5, after my second year of college. I was dating the older brother of one of my housemates, and we were (almost?) the quintessential New Yorkers: liberal, young, and happy. Though we were both on budgets, we were good at finding great free events/activities to take up while I was there. No, we were not living anything like the "Friends" depicted on television, but we were happy. We were a nice Jewish boy from Wisconsin and a young Chinese-American woman (we insisted on calling ourselves women - or wimmin, or womyn - in those days at Wellesley) from Bergen County, New Jersey.
I received a letter recently from a friend I'd met while I lived in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Ann commented that my life, since having moved to San Diego, appears to have been quite full and interesting in fulfilling ways. I looked back at my life while I lived in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, and realized that at that point, my life was quite circumscribed by my physical circumstances. I was a stay-at-home mom to a young child (Kat aged from 6 to 8 then), and my life was centered on improving my mental and, to a lesser extent, physical abilities after having been pretty well-battered as the result of a rush-hour automobile collision involving my economy 4-door sedan and a tractor trailer. I remember just being thankful (to nobody in particular, but nonetheless, relieved) that Kat was not in the car with me, for though her car seat was securely fastened to the center of the rear seat, she would nonetheless have suffered injuries from flying broken glass and psychological trauma, for she probably would not have lost consciousness, as I had.
While I recovered slowly, I started to play Bridge as a means of improving my short-term memory skills while enjoying social interaction. Most (actually, all) of the other members of the Williamsport Bridge Club were retirees who had their Tuesday afternoons free. Actually, just about all of my days were free, as I had no job -or even job prospects- at this point. I helped set out the snacks and coffee each Tuesday afternoon, and enjoyed the weekly lessons before a few hours of play. All the players were friendly, even if they gave intense competition during the game. There would be breaks when we chatted about our families and lives. I enjoyed those afternoons. After I left the Keystone State for the sunny Southwest (first stopping in Albuquerque for the summer, then finally landing in San Diego), I kept in touch with Ann, one of my occasional partners in playing (her husband, Frank, does not play Bridge, or at least doesn't to the extent that Ann plays). More often than not, the instructor, whose name escapes me now, was usually my partner, as I was one of the few people there who was not joined by their spouse or another regular partner.
When I moved to Albuquerque, and then, later, San Diego, I played Bridge as a means of joining an established community which was friendly and open to new players. There appeared to be very little ego in the room, just fun being had by all who were learning or re-learning after a hiatus that may have lasted years. Not that Bridge cannot be stressful, but playing it is enjoyable for me, though I have not played in many, many months now (essentially since taking up SCUBA diving, three years ago).
I was reminded of how much I enjoy games during our recent trip on the Horizon, over Memorial Day weekend, when we went to Santa Catalina Island and San Clemente. I played a few games of Mexican Train (dominoes) with a couple of older women and enjoyed taking my turns, chatting, and playing, even if I didn't win. The other players commented on my sportsmanship, and I replied that as often as I find myself losing, it helps to enjoy the play as much as I do. Winning is a plus, no longer a focus. The games seem to have become much more of a journey for me than a means to an end.
Anyway, all of this was brought to mind when I received a letter from Ann, informing me that she's been in physical therapy because she'd fallen a couple times due to strength imbalance in her legs. I think Ann's in her early- to mid-80's now, just about 40 years older than I am. I recently took some stock of my general health, and while I am, by may respects, healthy, I'm not near as fit as I'd like to be.
As a reminder to myself, I want to get back into running intervals again, especially now that my hip is feeling much better after the little bit of rest and physical therapy it did receive over the past three weeks. I ran once last week, and I may go again this afternoon/evening, depending on how the schedule works out with my going to the gym and getting to the equipment I like before it becomes too crowded with the after-work crowd. It also depends on when Kat gets home, of course.
The reason I wanted to write this entry in the first place was to introduce the fact that Kat and I will be taking Professional Bakeshop Skills together through San Diego Continuing Education, which will be very, very cool. She actually attended the first class this week with Liz because I was still recovering from food poisoning that I acquired Sunday afternoon at the SCUBA show. Next week, I will attend Monday afternoon/evening's class, and Kat will be on her field trip with her Girl Scout troop to NorCal. The following week, we'll finally be able to attend a class together. There'll be optional Friday classes as well, and I'm fairly sure we'll try to make it to a lot of those sessions, too. I'm tres excited to take a class with her, especially in a topic that we both love and can bring into our home life, as well as something that can go beyond our home life, eventually, depending on how things go...
I received a letter recently from a friend I'd met while I lived in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Ann commented that my life, since having moved to San Diego, appears to have been quite full and interesting in fulfilling ways. I looked back at my life while I lived in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, and realized that at that point, my life was quite circumscribed by my physical circumstances. I was a stay-at-home mom to a young child (Kat aged from 6 to 8 then), and my life was centered on improving my mental and, to a lesser extent, physical abilities after having been pretty well-battered as the result of a rush-hour automobile collision involving my economy 4-door sedan and a tractor trailer. I remember just being thankful (to nobody in particular, but nonetheless, relieved) that Kat was not in the car with me, for though her car seat was securely fastened to the center of the rear seat, she would nonetheless have suffered injuries from flying broken glass and psychological trauma, for she probably would not have lost consciousness, as I had.
While I recovered slowly, I started to play Bridge as a means of improving my short-term memory skills while enjoying social interaction. Most (actually, all) of the other members of the Williamsport Bridge Club were retirees who had their Tuesday afternoons free. Actually, just about all of my days were free, as I had no job -or even job prospects- at this point. I helped set out the snacks and coffee each Tuesday afternoon, and enjoyed the weekly lessons before a few hours of play. All the players were friendly, even if they gave intense competition during the game. There would be breaks when we chatted about our families and lives. I enjoyed those afternoons. After I left the Keystone State for the sunny Southwest (first stopping in Albuquerque for the summer, then finally landing in San Diego), I kept in touch with Ann, one of my occasional partners in playing (her husband, Frank, does not play Bridge, or at least doesn't to the extent that Ann plays). More often than not, the instructor, whose name escapes me now, was usually my partner, as I was one of the few people there who was not joined by their spouse or another regular partner.
When I moved to Albuquerque, and then, later, San Diego, I played Bridge as a means of joining an established community which was friendly and open to new players. There appeared to be very little ego in the room, just fun being had by all who were learning or re-learning after a hiatus that may have lasted years. Not that Bridge cannot be stressful, but playing it is enjoyable for me, though I have not played in many, many months now (essentially since taking up SCUBA diving, three years ago).
I was reminded of how much I enjoy games during our recent trip on the Horizon, over Memorial Day weekend, when we went to Santa Catalina Island and San Clemente. I played a few games of Mexican Train (dominoes) with a couple of older women and enjoyed taking my turns, chatting, and playing, even if I didn't win. The other players commented on my sportsmanship, and I replied that as often as I find myself losing, it helps to enjoy the play as much as I do. Winning is a plus, no longer a focus. The games seem to have become much more of a journey for me than a means to an end.
Anyway, all of this was brought to mind when I received a letter from Ann, informing me that she's been in physical therapy because she'd fallen a couple times due to strength imbalance in her legs. I think Ann's in her early- to mid-80's now, just about 40 years older than I am. I recently took some stock of my general health, and while I am, by may respects, healthy, I'm not near as fit as I'd like to be.
As a reminder to myself, I want to get back into running intervals again, especially now that my hip is feeling much better after the little bit of rest and physical therapy it did receive over the past three weeks. I ran once last week, and I may go again this afternoon/evening, depending on how the schedule works out with my going to the gym and getting to the equipment I like before it becomes too crowded with the after-work crowd. It also depends on when Kat gets home, of course.
The reason I wanted to write this entry in the first place was to introduce the fact that Kat and I will be taking Professional Bakeshop Skills together through San Diego Continuing Education, which will be very, very cool. She actually attended the first class this week with Liz because I was still recovering from food poisoning that I acquired Sunday afternoon at the SCUBA show. Next week, I will attend Monday afternoon/evening's class, and Kat will be on her field trip with her Girl Scout troop to NorCal. The following week, we'll finally be able to attend a class together. There'll be optional Friday classes as well, and I'm fairly sure we'll try to make it to a lot of those sessions, too. I'm tres excited to take a class with her, especially in a topic that we both love and can bring into our home life, as well as something that can go beyond our home life, eventually, depending on how things go...
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Last Day of Pastries and Desserts Class
Yesterday was the last meeting of Pastries & Desserts. On Monday, the summer term begins and I will explore Advanced Bakeshop Skills, which is described as learning baking theory and practicing production techniques. Could come in handy. I'd asked Jake which class I ought to take to learn how to make puff pastry and ladyfingers, and he said, "Advanced Bakeshop Skills." He also recommended taking it at the West City campus, because the kitchen there is superior to the one at the Educational Cultural Complex, where I'd taken Pastries & Desserts with him.
We made baklava (with prepared phyllo dough from a box, of course; similarly, we'd used store-bought ladyfingers last week for tiramisu) for our final class meeting. Fortunately, the two women I'd liked most from the class, Sonya and Sarah, were friends and actually asked me for my phone number. I exchanged phone numbers with them. They both live in Golden Hill, east of Downtown (San Diego). When the baklava that I'd prepared with another young woman, whose name I've forgotten now, came out of the oven, it looked really nice and well-baked.
Yikes! In a spate of clearing files from the camera's memory card, I deleted the photos I'd taken of our lovely baklava! Oh, well; I suppose that just means I'll have to make another one sometime...
We made baklava (with prepared phyllo dough from a box, of course; similarly, we'd used store-bought ladyfingers last week for tiramisu) for our final class meeting. Fortunately, the two women I'd liked most from the class, Sonya and Sarah, were friends and actually asked me for my phone number. I exchanged phone numbers with them. They both live in Golden Hill, east of Downtown (San Diego). When the baklava that I'd prepared with another young woman, whose name I've forgotten now, came out of the oven, it looked really nice and well-baked.
Yikes! In a spate of clearing files from the camera's memory card, I deleted the photos I'd taken of our lovely baklava! Oh, well; I suppose that just means I'll have to make another one sometime...
Election Day, June 2014
Tuesday, I
awoke at my usual time, about 4:30 am, and realized that I should not
be going back to sleep, for I was due at the polling station at 5:45
in order to set up the touchscreen voting machine and to meet the
other workers at my precinct. The Precinct Inspector was a
pleasant Vietnamese woman named Grace, the Assistant Precinct
Inspector was a woman whose name escaped my mind the moment after she
introduced herself to me, who was also a Vietnamese immigrant; there
were two men, one who was about my age or a little older, who had a
son in high school, and a retired man who very proudly informed me
that he had a son who attended Columbia University for undergraduate
and either medical school or law school.
This older
man's name was Augusto (or something like that), and he exhibited all
the pride that comes from a lack of self-knowledge, especially as one
ages and loses mental capacities that once may have been quite
superior (though being a doctor from South America would not have
been a high recommendation to me for his practice). It was sad
and frustrating at the same. He had taken it upon himself to
assume the job of looking up voters' addresses and names in the
street index, which was arranged alphabetically by street name, then
in numerical order of the address. Seemed quite simple enough
to me, and I figured that it was not his eyesight that limited his
ability to look up names and addresses quickly, but rather the
molasses flow of his mind.
As the day
waxed, few voters turned up with long draughts between. We sat
and most of us chatted with one another, about family, mostly. I
learned how Grace's family had slowly immigrated, each entering group
gaining citizenship and, in turn, sponsoring additional family
members to join them. I think I was in the same entering generation
of immigrants as her niece, who is my age. Grace told me how, as
immigrants, her generation, as parents, had focused their energy on
teaching their children English, and not their native tongue, thus
producing a generation (mine) that feels the loss of the
intergenerational connection that language provides in families of
immigrants.
When I asked if
Augusto would allow Tim, who sat next to him, to take the job of
looking up street addresses, his reaction was defensive and rather
pitiful in its expression of pride. He said that if I wanted him to
leave and go home, he could do that (I was sooo tempted!). He
refused to take into consideration the fact that voters were waiting,
thankfully patiently, for him to look up their addresses after having
it reiterated for him a number of times not less than two. At the
end of the evening, he was in a hurry to leave, and would not lend a
hand in counting and totaling the ballots. I turned my attention to
the touchscreen voting machine and limited it to the task of having
the machine tabulate the number of votes cast (zero) and the
respective number of votes each candidate received (zero, of course).
Augusto left before the ballots were all counted. The last thing he
did do was to go outside and pick up the yellow “Vote Here”
signs from the street entrance to the building. After he left, Tim
tried to make due with the required signatures on various documents,
though without the fifth signature, I'm not sure id the ballots cast
at our voting station were actually counted. I don't know enough
about the electoral process in California to be able to tell whether
voting was a waste of the time of all of those voters in our precinct
because of one angry aged man whose pride meant more to him than any
social benefit he may have provided by “serving” as a poll
worker. In my not-so-humble opinion, he should not receive his
stipend (although it's not much, under $100) because he essentially
reneged on his duties.
As I left the
parking lot of the church where the voting materials drop-off took
place, Grace called to me and invited me to have lunch or dinner with
her (and the Assistant Precinct Inspector) sometime. Indeed, that
would be nice. Might even invite Tim, who was not unpleasant at all,
either, to work with.
I told Peter
when I saw him later that I hope never to become belligerent in old
age. If my faculties begin to wane, I just hope to do it gracefully
and not pin my ego on my intellectual prowess, which can only go
down. He agreed that that would be a damn shame.
Friday, May 30, 2014
My Carbon Footprint
I've been thinking a bit lately about how much my carbon footprint has increased in just this past year. Before then, my carbon footprint after having moved to san Diego could have been something to be envied: I took the bus pretty much everywhere local, I walked a lot, and didn't drive much to go anywhere. I lived a somewhat satisfying, if locally-focused, life.
During this past year, however, I've been doing my share of contributing to global climate change, and it's not something that I am particularly proud of. I've made two international round trips (a total of six flights, including an international trip outside the U.S.) since last summer, and have flown to San Francisco a couple of times, as well. The flights were all holiday-related. Last summer, Peter and I took two flights each way to Roatan (from San Diego to Dallas and then onward to Roatan) where we spent a week scuba diving and exploring each other.
I accompanied Peter in the late winter to Barcelona, where he attended a conference. After the conference, we flew from Barcelona to London, then from London to Newcastle upon Tyne. We hired a car from Newcastle which we took up the coast to Alnwick. We then headed to the Lake District, staying in Keswick. Finally, we headed eastward through a few small towns, returning to Joan McGuinness's home. Loved the roundabouts and how quickly and efficiently they enabled traffic to move. Makes me wonder why we don't utilize them more here, but then I think about the driving habits of Americans in general, and realize that we live, unfortunately, in a society that needs rules that take away any personal judgment. Being outside the United States makes me wonder why this country is so so so far behind others in adopting modern technologies into life. The carbon footprint of the United States is indeed quite large and heavy and deep.
I'd flown from San Diego to San Francisco for the Game Developers' Conference, and for a random late early summer weekend.
It's surprising to me how my behavior has changed now that I am in love. Some things that I would not have considered before I'm doing now with nary a thought, which is a good sign for love and a bad sign for the environment, I guess.
This summer, we'll be flying to Kosrae, an island in Micronesia, essentially in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean. It'll be a diving holiday, with stops at other islands both going and returning. I'm learning that I need to accept the price of flying (both to myself personally and to the earth). While I do not profess to be a paragon of environmentalism, I also don't want to be part of the problem, either. I've always had mixed feelings about people like Al Gore, who travels quite extensively to tell people to, well, conserve resources and limit their carbon emissions.
There are sites online where one can have one's carbon footprint calculated according to travel and other carbon-inducing activities. I've been to one in particular for class:
http://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/carboncalculator.
I found that this application takes many aspects of modern living into consideration. It can be a bit depressing, though, to learn just how many metric tons (each at a thousand kilograms) one is responsible for. It never feels like much while we're doing it, but every trip to the market where one hops in one's car, every restaurant dining experience, and, especially, flight, adds to the carbon loading our species puts on this limited earth. The Earth is sending us a message that we shan't ignore, because if we continue to do so, we are signing our own (and our children's children's) death warrant.
During this past year, however, I've been doing my share of contributing to global climate change, and it's not something that I am particularly proud of. I've made two international round trips (a total of six flights, including an international trip outside the U.S.) since last summer, and have flown to San Francisco a couple of times, as well. The flights were all holiday-related. Last summer, Peter and I took two flights each way to Roatan (from San Diego to Dallas and then onward to Roatan) where we spent a week scuba diving and exploring each other.
I accompanied Peter in the late winter to Barcelona, where he attended a conference. After the conference, we flew from Barcelona to London, then from London to Newcastle upon Tyne. We hired a car from Newcastle which we took up the coast to Alnwick. We then headed to the Lake District, staying in Keswick. Finally, we headed eastward through a few small towns, returning to Joan McGuinness's home. Loved the roundabouts and how quickly and efficiently they enabled traffic to move. Makes me wonder why we don't utilize them more here, but then I think about the driving habits of Americans in general, and realize that we live, unfortunately, in a society that needs rules that take away any personal judgment. Being outside the United States makes me wonder why this country is so so so far behind others in adopting modern technologies into life. The carbon footprint of the United States is indeed quite large and heavy and deep.
I'd flown from San Diego to San Francisco for the Game Developers' Conference, and for a random late early summer weekend.
It's surprising to me how my behavior has changed now that I am in love. Some things that I would not have considered before I'm doing now with nary a thought, which is a good sign for love and a bad sign for the environment, I guess.
This summer, we'll be flying to Kosrae, an island in Micronesia, essentially in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean. It'll be a diving holiday, with stops at other islands both going and returning. I'm learning that I need to accept the price of flying (both to myself personally and to the earth). While I do not profess to be a paragon of environmentalism, I also don't want to be part of the problem, either. I've always had mixed feelings about people like Al Gore, who travels quite extensively to tell people to, well, conserve resources and limit their carbon emissions.
There are sites online where one can have one's carbon footprint calculated according to travel and other carbon-inducing activities. I've been to one in particular for class:
http://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/carboncalculator.
I found that this application takes many aspects of modern living into consideration. It can be a bit depressing, though, to learn just how many metric tons (each at a thousand kilograms) one is responsible for. It never feels like much while we're doing it, but every trip to the market where one hops in one's car, every restaurant dining experience, and, especially, flight, adds to the carbon loading our species puts on this limited earth. The Earth is sending us a message that we shan't ignore, because if we continue to do so, we are signing our own (and our children's children's) death warrant.
Friday, May 23, 2014
Nitrox Certification!
I took the Enriched Diver PADI course at Sport Chalet. The course orientation was last week, when we filled out forms and decided when to meet this week (we'd met tonight, Tuesday, one week after the orientation). In class tonight, we went over the Knowledge Reviews at the end of the course book before taking the exam. I was surprised that the exam did not contain any calculations, as I had been worried about remembering formulae for calculating things like Partial Pressures of breathing gas components and allowable bottom times. Nitrox is made up of Nitrogen and Oxygen, in varying proportions, depending on the application. If one wants to dive for a long time at a fairly shallow depth, then one can boost the oxygen level and reduce the nitrogen so that there is less risk of nitrogen narcosis, though this introduces the possibility of oxygen toxicity, which can be easily fatal as it causes convulsions that cause the diver to spit out their regulator and drown. What I hadn't known until this class was that although there are some possible symptoms prior to having a convulsive seizure, it's actually more likely that no symptoms will appear prior to the convulsions. Hmmm, that's food for thought...
The other thing I hadn't known is that the three-minute safety stop when coming up from a dive deeper than 40 feet is a precaution, not a requirement. I had asked whether we would still make a safety stop when bringing a convulsing or unconscious diver to the surface. She answered that although safety stops are preferable, if we're trying to keep another diver from drowning, we can just go right up to the surface to expose their face to air that they can potentially breathe. I suppose it's better to have the bends on the surface than be dead on the bottom, eh?
After taking the multiple choice exam, we completed some practical exercises with our dive computers and a couple of cylinders containing enriched air mixes. One tank contained Nitrox with 31 per cent oxygen, and the other contained 27 per cent oxygen. We practiced filling out the forms that we'll be presented with whenever we get enriched air fills, and practiced programming our computers to calculate the new set of criteria when diving with Nitrox of varying gas proportions.
At the end of the evening, Kathy, the instructor, gave us a photocopied list of local (Southern Californian) dive shops that supply Nitrox. Sport Chalet is not one of them. We went behind the desk in the SCUBA section of the store to see the up-to-date inspection certificate that dive shops are required to have in order to provide air fills of any type. Where Peter and I typically go to get our air fills, they do have Nitrox. Whenever I go to get a fill, the fellow who is there most of the time asks me, "Air or Nitrox?" and I always answer, "Just air." Depending on what we decide to dive with this weekend, I might have the opportunity to ask for a Nitrox fill, and present my (temporary) certification card with Kathy's signature. My permanent card will come in the mail in several days or a couple weeks.
Yay!
Yay!
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Feeling Better; Plus Another Dive at La Jolla Shores
I should take back what I'd said about my satisfaction with eBay and PayPal. So far, though I'm scheduled to receive a credit, my account has yet to be updated. I know it's supposed to take a few days from when the product was returned, but I returned it at least a week ago, and my account still does not show the credit. I will phone their customer service tomorrow (since it'll be a regular business day) and hopefully get a live person on the phone who can either correct it or at least tell me why it's taken so long. Maybe this process will take longer. I guess I've got time, since I'd bought the computer with the 6-month leave for payment...
Yesterday, Peter and I took another dive at the Shores. I changed my outfit so that I was only wearing the Fourth Element fleece-lined drysuit liner bottoms without the LL Bean Expedition Weight base layer beneath. The dive was uneventful, but executed fairly well. Peter still held one of my fins, though, while I donned the first one between sets. After waiting through the next set, I managed my second fin, and started kicking out through another couple sets of waves until I got into the more rolling portion of the waves away from the breakers.
We descended into about 20 feet of water among lots of little sand dollars (Peter calls them "sand dimes"), seeing a few small sea stars, and commenced swimming west into the "Crap Patch." We swam slowly and easily through the warm water (the water temp stayed around 60 degrees F). When we were on our way to Vallecitos Point, we came across a small group of divers who apparently were also headed for the point, and as they swam away from us, they kicked up A LOT of sand, clouding the water so that it was hard to see after they'd left. We ended up swimming to shallower water, noodling around, then finished the dive by swimming underwater until we got to a depth of about 12 feet, when I looked up, saw a few divers on the surface, and decided to swim the rest of the way on the surface. I kicked backwards, keeping my eye on Peter's form as he swam along the bottom until it was shallow enough to stand up.
After a first mislead, we drove over to Ski Beach on Mission Bay (on Vacation Island), where the Dive Animals were having a picnic. Peter introduced me to a couple of other members, and I introduced myself to a woman, whose name is Martina, I think, who is a native Southern Californian, but lived on the East Coast for a number of years with her husband, who recently retired. Turns out they'll be on next weekend's boat dive as well, so I'll at least have been introduced to a few people who will be on the boat. I think there are a total of about 28 people who will be on the boat, which, from what Peter told me, is well-appointed and staffed, with a nice swim step on the back with two fin ladders descending into the water.
Martina had won the raffle prize of a cabin seat for one on the October trip to the Cortez Banks, but since she and her husband are going to the Seychelles then, she won't be able to use it. She sold it to Peter for just a little less than the purchase price would have been and he bought another cabin ticket from Gayle so that we'd have the cabin for the two of us. Gayle commented that though the October boat is nearly full, there are still 4 open slots on this weekend's trip. So even though she'd planned to already have fewer divers than can be accommodated by the boat (I think it's the Horizon), we might have even fewer, which means plenty of space for everyone, which is good news for people diving dry, as dry divers take up more space (with gear, etc.) than wet divers.
I was able to download the license for MacDive onto my computer, so I should be able to start using all its functionalities now. I'll learn more after next weekend, when I'll download those dives, which will take me over the trial version limit of five saved dives. For $25, MacDive appears to be a good program which works well with the dive computer data. I like being able to see my dive profile on the screen.
I showed the profile from that dive to Kat. She commented that it looked like we went really deep. I looked, and then realized, somewhat surprisedly, that we'd gone to 84 feet, which is deeper than I'd thought. So the last two things that I want to work on (concentratedly, during the dive, as opposed to technique in getting past the surf and donning my fins) is breathing slower. Peter said it'll come when I become more comfortable and am able to relax while diving.
Relax, yes.
Yesterday, Peter and I took another dive at the Shores. I changed my outfit so that I was only wearing the Fourth Element fleece-lined drysuit liner bottoms without the LL Bean Expedition Weight base layer beneath. The dive was uneventful, but executed fairly well. Peter still held one of my fins, though, while I donned the first one between sets. After waiting through the next set, I managed my second fin, and started kicking out through another couple sets of waves until I got into the more rolling portion of the waves away from the breakers.
We descended into about 20 feet of water among lots of little sand dollars (Peter calls them "sand dimes"), seeing a few small sea stars, and commenced swimming west into the "Crap Patch." We swam slowly and easily through the warm water (the water temp stayed around 60 degrees F). When we were on our way to Vallecitos Point, we came across a small group of divers who apparently were also headed for the point, and as they swam away from us, they kicked up A LOT of sand, clouding the water so that it was hard to see after they'd left. We ended up swimming to shallower water, noodling around, then finished the dive by swimming underwater until we got to a depth of about 12 feet, when I looked up, saw a few divers on the surface, and decided to swim the rest of the way on the surface. I kicked backwards, keeping my eye on Peter's form as he swam along the bottom until it was shallow enough to stand up.
After a first mislead, we drove over to Ski Beach on Mission Bay (on Vacation Island), where the Dive Animals were having a picnic. Peter introduced me to a couple of other members, and I introduced myself to a woman, whose name is Martina, I think, who is a native Southern Californian, but lived on the East Coast for a number of years with her husband, who recently retired. Turns out they'll be on next weekend's boat dive as well, so I'll at least have been introduced to a few people who will be on the boat. I think there are a total of about 28 people who will be on the boat, which, from what Peter told me, is well-appointed and staffed, with a nice swim step on the back with two fin ladders descending into the water.
Martina had won the raffle prize of a cabin seat for one on the October trip to the Cortez Banks, but since she and her husband are going to the Seychelles then, she won't be able to use it. She sold it to Peter for just a little less than the purchase price would have been and he bought another cabin ticket from Gayle so that we'd have the cabin for the two of us. Gayle commented that though the October boat is nearly full, there are still 4 open slots on this weekend's trip. So even though she'd planned to already have fewer divers than can be accommodated by the boat (I think it's the Horizon), we might have even fewer, which means plenty of space for everyone, which is good news for people diving dry, as dry divers take up more space (with gear, etc.) than wet divers.
I was able to download the license for MacDive onto my computer, so I should be able to start using all its functionalities now. I'll learn more after next weekend, when I'll download those dives, which will take me over the trial version limit of five saved dives. For $25, MacDive appears to be a good program which works well with the dive computer data. I like being able to see my dive profile on the screen.
I showed the profile from that dive to Kat. She commented that it looked like we went really deep. I looked, and then realized, somewhat surprisedly, that we'd gone to 84 feet, which is deeper than I'd thought. So the last two things that I want to work on (concentratedly, during the dive, as opposed to technique in getting past the surf and donning my fins) is breathing slower. Peter said it'll come when I become more comfortable and am able to relax while diving.
Relax, yes.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Follow-up on my eBay and PayPal experience
Well, following my description of what happened with the first dive computer I'd "won" on eBay, I received a response from the seller, who chose to sign anonymously. Well, I have a problem with people who won't own up to their own words, so I will just say for now that his first name is Kevin. If he chooses to harass me any further, I will announce his contact information here so that anyone else who feels compelled can give him a taste of his own medicine.
In other, related news, I am thrilled to have a functioning dive computer! It was even sent with the user's manual, which is great. Unfortunately, the battery that was included was the wrong size, so Peter ran out to CVS to procure a replacement, which took all of about fifteen minutes total. We went on a very nice, calm dive to the canyon, and, by using Peter's download cable, I was able to see my dive profile, which looked pretty uneventful, except I did pop up to the surface at the end of the dive, when we'd gotten to about 12-15 feet of water depth. We'd been swimming toward the beach for a while at that point, so I did not worry about DCI. I just waited at the surface until Peter came up, and we swam together back into the shallows, where we easily took off our fins and stood up.
This will be a short entry, as I've things to do tonight, but I wanted to write something after receiving a notification that someone had commented on one of my posts.
On another note, I will not be attending Pastries and Desserts this week, as there is an all-day symposium on Energy & Climate Change, which I plan to attend. I was told by one of my fellow 350.org members that I can ask a question regarding using thorium as fuel for nuclear reactors. I'm looking forward to that.
Sunday, May 11, 2014
The Mundane Essentials of Living Skinny
When I use the phrase "living skinny," don't think that I'm referring to a lowfat diet. In fact, oftentimes, living skinny in those terms often implies eating more (financially) expensive ingredients and eating at more expensive restaurants. What I mean when I use this phrase is in contrast to "living fat," with which I'm referring to living generously, or living large, I think is how some people put it. In plain English, it means to live cheaply, or frugally, in my case, which I try to do to the extent possible and practicable.
Much of the mundanity of my life is spent living a pretty skinny life, as I do not have unlimited funds with which to finance my desires, much less my needs. I take advantage of the many free and public events that cross my path, and absorb as much as I can in any learning environment.
Take the Pastries and Desserts class I am currently enrolled in. There is no fee for the class, and just a nominal materials fee for ingredients. I've thought to bring my own cooking utensils to use, but since I no longer have any inkling of what we're preparing each week, that's a rather difficult thing to do, for sure. In this class, I'm learning about ingredients and new methods, and am being exposed to recipes that I have not encountered before, such as this week's Rum Baba. Bananas Foster, which was our second recipe this week, I've approximated before, though without the rum.
I'm adding the recipes to my (paper) library as I get them, collecting the handouts each week. Eventually, I will add the ones I like (or ones that I missed but want to try) to my electronic library by scanning the sheets and saving them as pdf's on my computer in the Recipes folder to which I've been adding for the past several months. I have some subfolders for some of the more common recipes I like to use when I know I'm in the mood for making a certain type of item, but need a specific recipe. Among these subfolders are: Cookies, Bars, Biscuits and Muffins; Cakes; Pies, Cobblers, and Crisps; Soups; and Pasta, Rice, and Beans. Other recipes are kept in the general Recipes Folder, itself a subfolder in my Documents folder on the hard drive.
Thinking about ingredients that I want to use, I had prepared a jar of preserved lemons in either December or January, following a (free, of course) presentation at the public library's central branch downtown. The presentation was sponsored by the Culinary Historians of San Diego and the recipe was given to attendees after the main presentation, which was about an author's travels around the Mediterranean, and the people and foods she encountered there.
The preserved lemons are beckoning me from the kitchen counter, where they sit next to the coffee grinder and coffeemaker. Another recipe I came across when searching for recipes using preserved lemons was that for preserved butter, another Moroccan invention (or so I'm led to believe). It looks a little harder to make, but I have the pound of butter required for the recipe (actually, it requires 500 grams, but a pound is close enough). I'm just not sure how one kneads butter without causing it to melt with the heat of one's hands. Maybe one uses really, really cold water for kneading the salt into the butter to keep the butter cool and relatively solid.
Making my own preserved lemons is an example of another activity that I like to engage in: producing ingredients to be used in other recipes. Even when I was in school in Virginia, in the late 1980's to the late 1990's, I made herbed vinegar with which I dressed salads, as well as used as substitute when vinegar was called for, to add extra flavor to whatever I was making.
Speaking of herbed vinegars, I ought to dry some of the herbs from Peter's herb garden and set them into jars of vinegar to flavor them. Currently, we have some vinegars, two of which that are made from citrus fruits and one that is made from honey. These are not flavored vinegars, but rather vinegars that are made by fermenting their namesakes themselves. The honey vinegar is quite nice, with extra virgin olive oil, on salads made with leaf lettuce, tomato, celery, sliced mushrooms, bell peppers, and quartered and sliced cuke. Of course, a little bit of crumbled/cubed feta (Bulgarian, Danish, or Greek) wouldn't hurt, either!
I followed a recipe for "paleo" coconut bread, which used half a dozen eggs, half a cup of melted butter, half a teaspoon of sea salt, and three-quarters of a cup of coconut flour. After it came out, I decided that when I make this again, I will add things to improve the texture: almond milk, to add moisture, and baking powder, to provide some leavening. I'll write about the result in a future post. For now, I'll just eat the evidence...
Much of the mundanity of my life is spent living a pretty skinny life, as I do not have unlimited funds with which to finance my desires, much less my needs. I take advantage of the many free and public events that cross my path, and absorb as much as I can in any learning environment.
Take the Pastries and Desserts class I am currently enrolled in. There is no fee for the class, and just a nominal materials fee for ingredients. I've thought to bring my own cooking utensils to use, but since I no longer have any inkling of what we're preparing each week, that's a rather difficult thing to do, for sure. In this class, I'm learning about ingredients and new methods, and am being exposed to recipes that I have not encountered before, such as this week's Rum Baba. Bananas Foster, which was our second recipe this week, I've approximated before, though without the rum.
I'm adding the recipes to my (paper) library as I get them, collecting the handouts each week. Eventually, I will add the ones I like (or ones that I missed but want to try) to my electronic library by scanning the sheets and saving them as pdf's on my computer in the Recipes folder to which I've been adding for the past several months. I have some subfolders for some of the more common recipes I like to use when I know I'm in the mood for making a certain type of item, but need a specific recipe. Among these subfolders are: Cookies, Bars, Biscuits and Muffins; Cakes; Pies, Cobblers, and Crisps; Soups; and Pasta, Rice, and Beans. Other recipes are kept in the general Recipes Folder, itself a subfolder in my Documents folder on the hard drive.
Thinking about ingredients that I want to use, I had prepared a jar of preserved lemons in either December or January, following a (free, of course) presentation at the public library's central branch downtown. The presentation was sponsored by the Culinary Historians of San Diego and the recipe was given to attendees after the main presentation, which was about an author's travels around the Mediterranean, and the people and foods she encountered there.
The preserved lemons are beckoning me from the kitchen counter, where they sit next to the coffee grinder and coffeemaker. Another recipe I came across when searching for recipes using preserved lemons was that for preserved butter, another Moroccan invention (or so I'm led to believe). It looks a little harder to make, but I have the pound of butter required for the recipe (actually, it requires 500 grams, but a pound is close enough). I'm just not sure how one kneads butter without causing it to melt with the heat of one's hands. Maybe one uses really, really cold water for kneading the salt into the butter to keep the butter cool and relatively solid.
Making my own preserved lemons is an example of another activity that I like to engage in: producing ingredients to be used in other recipes. Even when I was in school in Virginia, in the late 1980's to the late 1990's, I made herbed vinegar with which I dressed salads, as well as used as substitute when vinegar was called for, to add extra flavor to whatever I was making.
Speaking of herbed vinegars, I ought to dry some of the herbs from Peter's herb garden and set them into jars of vinegar to flavor them. Currently, we have some vinegars, two of which that are made from citrus fruits and one that is made from honey. These are not flavored vinegars, but rather vinegars that are made by fermenting their namesakes themselves. The honey vinegar is quite nice, with extra virgin olive oil, on salads made with leaf lettuce, tomato, celery, sliced mushrooms, bell peppers, and quartered and sliced cuke. Of course, a little bit of crumbled/cubed feta (Bulgarian, Danish, or Greek) wouldn't hurt, either!
I followed a recipe for "paleo" coconut bread, which used half a dozen eggs, half a cup of melted butter, half a teaspoon of sea salt, and three-quarters of a cup of coconut flour. After it came out, I decided that when I make this again, I will add things to improve the texture: almond milk, to add moisture, and baking powder, to provide some leavening. I'll write about the result in a future post. For now, I'll just eat the evidence...
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Don't Forget the Crackers, Gromit!
Yesterday, Peter took out a wedge of brie he'd bought from Sprouts. When I arrived, it was "ripening" on the kitchen counter. We had some with our green salad for lunch. When I went to pick up Kat from school, Peter had some more, leaving a small piece for me to finish, which I did in the evening. I also took out the remaining cubic inch of feta that I'd had left from the pound or so that I'd purchased from North Park Produce last week (or something like that). I have, in the fridge, a wedge of brie that I'd brought from home yesterday (I'd bought it at Trader Joe's in a moment of weakness). It's still in the fridge, and it's likely that I'll probably cut into it either this evening or tomorrow.
Since it is Wednesday, it's a class day for Pastries and Desserts. I have no idea what we'll be doing, so I'll just bring some lightweight containers to bring home whatever it is we end up making. The class does not end until 3, so Kat will wait for me to pick her up after school. She will go to Homework Lab, which goes until I don't know how late, but she'll be waiting for me at 3:30 at the front of the school (on a side street; the school backs onto the main road). Driving there, I think I'll check the progress of the fumigation of our complex. Today, when we were on our way to the freeway from the school, I saw blue and red and yellow-striped tents on about half of the buildings on both the bottom and middle levels, so I assume the "gassing" didn't start until pretty late in the day on the first day (yesterday). The gas is turned on for 24-72 hours, depending on the level of infestation. I don't know how bad the infestation is, but from what I've seen, it looked bad enough, from my perspective, so that the tenting is a good thing to get rid of the termites. In reality, it looks like it might not be that bad, after all, since we're only exiled until tomorrow afternoon.
The preparations for the tenting were a good excuse for me to clean out the refrigerator. I (finally!) put into the trash the half- to mostly-empty containers of various goods that were still residing in the fridge. I used a Skoy cloth (a very thin, very light sheet of cellulose sponge) to wipe every shelf as I went, finally getting down to the vegetable drawers. There was one I could not take out because the door of the fridge blocks its path (the door doesn't open completely in the fridge's current location, and it'd be a really big hassle to move the fridge to the middle of the kitchen just to take the drawer out, so I wiped it out as best as I could with the Skoy). I removed the other drawer and washed it in the sink, leaving it to drain on the dishwasher rack, which was exposed to the air because I left the dishwasher open, specifically, for that purpose.
I opened all the cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms (mostly just slightly) to allow for free gas flow in and around them.
Now I'm thinking about cheese, of all things. Perhaps this is merely a recurring theme in my life:
When I was in college (half the marathon distance west of Boston, MA), I was known as "Cheese Woman" because I always had a pack or two of (sliced) cheese in the small fridge that I shared with my roommate. The cheese was purchased from the campus inconvenience store, and was often just swiss (provolone, if I got lucky). I often snacked on cheese while studying or reading.
Perhaps it's a minor miracle that I never suffered from "Freshman Fifteen" (the expression used for the common weight gain among college students when they leave home and are in charge of their own food choices for the first time since leaving home). Now that I'm raising my own child, I'm introducing her to my favorite more common cheeses (the different blues, brie, feta, camembert, romano, parmesan, gruyere). I'm also hoping to impart to Kat the importance of physical activity for one's overall health, though I admit, I allow her to spend hours on end with her iPad...
That's the main reason why I'm thinking about buying a bicycle for myself. Kat has a bike, which she uses to tool around Mira Mesa. I'd like to get a bike and a rack for my car so that we could take our bikes to parks (and the concrete paths along the shoreline) not located within easy riding distance, and bike for fun. Peter has a bike, so the three of us could go out, perhaps to Penasquitos Canyon or Pacific Beach, to take an occasional ride. I saw a really, really attractive Specialized bike in a bike shop in University City for about $500. It comes in different colors, too, and the color I like most is the deep purple. They have one, assembled, in the shop, waiting to be taken out.
First, I think I'll take Kat's bike out and ride it a bit to get myself accustomed to the feel of being on a bike again. It's been years and years since I've ridden very much (since architecture school), so I'm a bit anxious about spending so much money (and $500 is a lot of money to me) on a bike that might not see enough use to justify its cost. Worse comes to worst, though, I can always give the Specialized bike to Kat when she leaves for college. That'll be four years from now. These bikes will have to last, which I have no doubt they will, given the San Diego climate in which they currently reside...
I've been contemplating the purchase of the bike for a pretty long time now (over a year at this point). Other, more immediate things keep popping up, like my oral health problems and my dive computer dying (whose replacement I wrote about in a recent post), so the bike had gone to the back burner.
The other, more immediate purchase that I want to make (before August) is a dive vest that I could wear for the warm water diving in Kosrae. I think I'll still bring my (7mm) shorty for the just-in-case, though I doubt I will need it. I definitely will be limiting the space required in my luggage for clothing, as I plan to pack two or three sarongs, and wear shorts and a T-shirt for the flights to and from, as well as the Sunday we'll be there, as it looks like we'll spend that day hiking and exploring the island itself. When we were on Roatan, I wore my sarongs every day after the first, washing them during the warm evenings; they dried overnight and were ready to wear again in the morning.
I'll talk to Peter about the vests, as it looks like we'll need to buy them online, for the local dive shops don't seem to carry vests without hoods (which, given the water temperatures in San Diego, makes perfect sense).
I'd like to buy the bike before the summer really gets going, because I don't want it to get too hot to ride. But I do want to test out my riding skills first by taking Kat's bike out for a gentle ride around our neighborhood streets. I'll put that on my calendar after the fumigation.
No rant today, just some thoughts and quandaries. I suppose I could rant about being relatively unwell-off financially, but in reality, I have access to all the things that are necessary, and some things that are, in my mind, luxuries (including the consumption of generous quantities of cheese!).
Since it is Wednesday, it's a class day for Pastries and Desserts. I have no idea what we'll be doing, so I'll just bring some lightweight containers to bring home whatever it is we end up making. The class does not end until 3, so Kat will wait for me to pick her up after school. She will go to Homework Lab, which goes until I don't know how late, but she'll be waiting for me at 3:30 at the front of the school (on a side street; the school backs onto the main road). Driving there, I think I'll check the progress of the fumigation of our complex. Today, when we were on our way to the freeway from the school, I saw blue and red and yellow-striped tents on about half of the buildings on both the bottom and middle levels, so I assume the "gassing" didn't start until pretty late in the day on the first day (yesterday). The gas is turned on for 24-72 hours, depending on the level of infestation. I don't know how bad the infestation is, but from what I've seen, it looked bad enough, from my perspective, so that the tenting is a good thing to get rid of the termites. In reality, it looks like it might not be that bad, after all, since we're only exiled until tomorrow afternoon.
The preparations for the tenting were a good excuse for me to clean out the refrigerator. I (finally!) put into the trash the half- to mostly-empty containers of various goods that were still residing in the fridge. I used a Skoy cloth (a very thin, very light sheet of cellulose sponge) to wipe every shelf as I went, finally getting down to the vegetable drawers. There was one I could not take out because the door of the fridge blocks its path (the door doesn't open completely in the fridge's current location, and it'd be a really big hassle to move the fridge to the middle of the kitchen just to take the drawer out, so I wiped it out as best as I could with the Skoy). I removed the other drawer and washed it in the sink, leaving it to drain on the dishwasher rack, which was exposed to the air because I left the dishwasher open, specifically, for that purpose.
I opened all the cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms (mostly just slightly) to allow for free gas flow in and around them.
Now I'm thinking about cheese, of all things. Perhaps this is merely a recurring theme in my life:
When I was in college (half the marathon distance west of Boston, MA), I was known as "Cheese Woman" because I always had a pack or two of (sliced) cheese in the small fridge that I shared with my roommate. The cheese was purchased from the campus inconvenience store, and was often just swiss (provolone, if I got lucky). I often snacked on cheese while studying or reading.
Perhaps it's a minor miracle that I never suffered from "Freshman Fifteen" (the expression used for the common weight gain among college students when they leave home and are in charge of their own food choices for the first time since leaving home). Now that I'm raising my own child, I'm introducing her to my favorite more common cheeses (the different blues, brie, feta, camembert, romano, parmesan, gruyere). I'm also hoping to impart to Kat the importance of physical activity for one's overall health, though I admit, I allow her to spend hours on end with her iPad...
That's the main reason why I'm thinking about buying a bicycle for myself. Kat has a bike, which she uses to tool around Mira Mesa. I'd like to get a bike and a rack for my car so that we could take our bikes to parks (and the concrete paths along the shoreline) not located within easy riding distance, and bike for fun. Peter has a bike, so the three of us could go out, perhaps to Penasquitos Canyon or Pacific Beach, to take an occasional ride. I saw a really, really attractive Specialized bike in a bike shop in University City for about $500. It comes in different colors, too, and the color I like most is the deep purple. They have one, assembled, in the shop, waiting to be taken out.
First, I think I'll take Kat's bike out and ride it a bit to get myself accustomed to the feel of being on a bike again. It's been years and years since I've ridden very much (since architecture school), so I'm a bit anxious about spending so much money (and $500 is a lot of money to me) on a bike that might not see enough use to justify its cost. Worse comes to worst, though, I can always give the Specialized bike to Kat when she leaves for college. That'll be four years from now. These bikes will have to last, which I have no doubt they will, given the San Diego climate in which they currently reside...
I've been contemplating the purchase of the bike for a pretty long time now (over a year at this point). Other, more immediate things keep popping up, like my oral health problems and my dive computer dying (whose replacement I wrote about in a recent post), so the bike had gone to the back burner.
The other, more immediate purchase that I want to make (before August) is a dive vest that I could wear for the warm water diving in Kosrae. I think I'll still bring my (7mm) shorty for the just-in-case, though I doubt I will need it. I definitely will be limiting the space required in my luggage for clothing, as I plan to pack two or three sarongs, and wear shorts and a T-shirt for the flights to and from, as well as the Sunday we'll be there, as it looks like we'll spend that day hiking and exploring the island itself. When we were on Roatan, I wore my sarongs every day after the first, washing them during the warm evenings; they dried overnight and were ready to wear again in the morning.
I'll talk to Peter about the vests, as it looks like we'll need to buy them online, for the local dive shops don't seem to carry vests without hoods (which, given the water temperatures in San Diego, makes perfect sense).
I'd like to buy the bike before the summer really gets going, because I don't want it to get too hot to ride. But I do want to test out my riding skills first by taking Kat's bike out for a gentle ride around our neighborhood streets. I'll put that on my calendar after the fumigation.
No rant today, just some thoughts and quandaries. I suppose I could rant about being relatively unwell-off financially, but in reality, I have access to all the things that are necessary, and some things that are, in my mind, luxuries (including the consumption of generous quantities of cheese!).
Monday, May 5, 2014
eBay, PayPal, and Buyers' Protection
I'll start with a simple, yet delicious recipe for green globe squash, which I received in my recent CSA share:
1 globe green summer squash (resembles a globular zucchini)
small handful fresh basil (about four or six large leaves)
3-4 large cloves fresh garlic
1/2 t salt
2 T unsalted butter
Cut off stem end of squash. cut lengthwise (as much as it has a length - you know wheat I mean) into quarters, then cut off the bloom end scar from each quarter. slice into chunks between 1/8" and 1/4" thick.
Julienne the basil leaves. Chop the garlic coarsely.
Heat small nonstick nonreactive pan.
Add butter to hot pan and tilt to spread.
Add garlic, and cook, on medium heat, until fragrant. Add basil leaves, and allow to cook about a half minute longer. Add squash in a single layer, if you can, and allow to cook for about thirty seconds to one minute, until the squash looks shiny. Turn over the squash, basil leaves, and garlic so that the basil and garlic are on top, and the second broad side of the squash slices faces downward. Sprinkle salt over everything, then allow to cook just about thirty seconds longer for the squash to brown on its second side (this really doesn't take very long at all). Serve immediately.
This squash can be artfully eaten with chopsticks, as Kat and I did last night, with steamed and buttered green beans.
Is it obvious that we're trying to empty the kitchen and have limited access to ingredients? I need to remember to bring the remainder of the butter that I just opened to Peter's to use while we're staying there. My cream cheese and chunks of eating cheese are already there.
Tonight, I will take Kat to Oki Ton Japanese restaurant off Fenton Parkway (near the IKEA) here in San Diego. It's a little bit of a drive, but I've got a voucher to use and I might as well use it for this. Peter was coming with us, but it turns out he has a meeting with the PowPAC people to hand off their website administration, as he's administered it for a number of years now and I guess he's ready to let that part of his involvement go.
It won't be the first time Kat and I will be having dinner out together by ourselves, but since we don't eat out often, I'd like it to be a fun evening before we have to vacate our flat in the morning.
Almost two weeks ago, I'd received, in the mail, a new dive computer that I'd won on eBay. I dove with it this past Sunday at the Shores, and realized that the depth gauge was not working, as it kept registering me on the surface even though I was down at 17 feet (I was doing some hovering exercises at different depths). So I'm sending it back. Took it to the post office this morning in the box in which I'd originally received my medication this month from an online pharmacy.
I've already ordered another (used) dive computer from another vendor. Same brand and model. Still doesn't come with a download cable, but I can use the one that Peter has. I'm already planning to test the new-to-me Suunto Vyper this weekend, as it's supposed to arrive in the post on Friday. It's just as well for me to wait 'til the weekend, even though traffic & parking will be more challenging in La Jolla then, rather than take the new computer on a night dive before then.
So I appealed my refund with PayPal, whom I'd contacted almost immediately after buying the nonfunctioning computer. This afternoon, I already received a positive response. The refund should be credited to my account, bringing down my balance to just the second computer I'd bought (also on eBay). At least for this second computer, shipping was free...
So even though it might take a few days for all the payments/crediting to settle, I'm satisfied that I was able to get a refund. So in my case, the Buyers' Protection was triggered and worked. The only disappointment is the wait time on hold when one phones in, but that's pretty standard these days, isn't it?
1 globe green summer squash (resembles a globular zucchini)
small handful fresh basil (about four or six large leaves)
3-4 large cloves fresh garlic
1/2 t salt
2 T unsalted butter
Cut off stem end of squash. cut lengthwise (as much as it has a length - you know wheat I mean) into quarters, then cut off the bloom end scar from each quarter. slice into chunks between 1/8" and 1/4" thick.
Julienne the basil leaves. Chop the garlic coarsely.
Heat small nonstick nonreactive pan.
Add butter to hot pan and tilt to spread.
Add garlic, and cook, on medium heat, until fragrant. Add basil leaves, and allow to cook about a half minute longer. Add squash in a single layer, if you can, and allow to cook for about thirty seconds to one minute, until the squash looks shiny. Turn over the squash, basil leaves, and garlic so that the basil and garlic are on top, and the second broad side of the squash slices faces downward. Sprinkle salt over everything, then allow to cook just about thirty seconds longer for the squash to brown on its second side (this really doesn't take very long at all). Serve immediately.
This squash can be artfully eaten with chopsticks, as Kat and I did last night, with steamed and buttered green beans.
Is it obvious that we're trying to empty the kitchen and have limited access to ingredients? I need to remember to bring the remainder of the butter that I just opened to Peter's to use while we're staying there. My cream cheese and chunks of eating cheese are already there.
Tonight, I will take Kat to Oki Ton Japanese restaurant off Fenton Parkway (near the IKEA) here in San Diego. It's a little bit of a drive, but I've got a voucher to use and I might as well use it for this. Peter was coming with us, but it turns out he has a meeting with the PowPAC people to hand off their website administration, as he's administered it for a number of years now and I guess he's ready to let that part of his involvement go.
It won't be the first time Kat and I will be having dinner out together by ourselves, but since we don't eat out often, I'd like it to be a fun evening before we have to vacate our flat in the morning.
Almost two weeks ago, I'd received, in the mail, a new dive computer that I'd won on eBay. I dove with it this past Sunday at the Shores, and realized that the depth gauge was not working, as it kept registering me on the surface even though I was down at 17 feet (I was doing some hovering exercises at different depths). So I'm sending it back. Took it to the post office this morning in the box in which I'd originally received my medication this month from an online pharmacy.
I've already ordered another (used) dive computer from another vendor. Same brand and model. Still doesn't come with a download cable, but I can use the one that Peter has. I'm already planning to test the new-to-me Suunto Vyper this weekend, as it's supposed to arrive in the post on Friday. It's just as well for me to wait 'til the weekend, even though traffic & parking will be more challenging in La Jolla then, rather than take the new computer on a night dive before then.
So I appealed my refund with PayPal, whom I'd contacted almost immediately after buying the nonfunctioning computer. This afternoon, I already received a positive response. The refund should be credited to my account, bringing down my balance to just the second computer I'd bought (also on eBay). At least for this second computer, shipping was free...
So even though it might take a few days for all the payments/crediting to settle, I'm satisfied that I was able to get a refund. So in my case, the Buyers' Protection was triggered and worked. The only disappointment is the wait time on hold when one phones in, but that's pretty standard these days, isn't it?
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