Author: Gerry

Categories
Misc

A New Addiction

So earlier today, my brother (I think) suggests I try Words with Friends. I download it on my Nook, set it up and invite him to play a game. Shortly thereafter, word gets around the family and the next thing I know, I’ve got a game going with my Dad and Sister as well.

So the Wife takes an interest this evening, installs it on her iPad and invites me to play a game. So I spread word to everyone else, and now we’ve all got at least 4 games going simultaneously. I don’t know who else my Brother, Dad and Sister are playing with at the moment, but based on the way I’ve been beaten so far, I’d wouldn’t be surprised if the list was long.

Just what I needed, something else to kill time with.

Categories
Misc

Final Elbow Update

Had what turned out to be my final post-surgery checkup for my elbow today. Can’t say I’m surprised as there’s been nothing to report on since the brace came off several months ago. I told the doctor the same thing I’ve been telling people who ask- I’m at the point where if you hadn’t known I had the surgery, you’d never know I had surgery. There’s weakness, but the strength I had doesn’t come back in a month’s time. Or 2 month’s, for that matter.

They did say “If anything else comes up, give us a call.” Here’s to hoping I don’t have to do that.

Categories
Armoire Woodworking

Some Gluing!

Amazingly, I finally got a chance to do some gluing today. I’m happy to report it went pretty well, although the rear panel gave me some fits. Mainly, it was a clumsy operation for 1 guy to work through because of the size of the parts involved. But, once I got everything started, the clamps did the rest of the work pulling everything together.

Now that what I have is together, I’m wondering how the hell I’m going to get it up to the second floor. It must be close on 100 pounds, plus it’s 4 feet wide, 2 feet deep and 3-and-a-half feet tall. Plus, I still have to add 2 doors and a top with some molding. I may need to rent a crane.

Another modest logistical problem is that I couldn’t glue it up on my workbench because of the size, so I did it on the floor in the garage. Technically, on a mat on the floor in the garage. Unfortunately, that spot is right in front of my workbench, so I’m going to have to find a different location for it before I can do any more work on it. How I’ll move it without dinging it should be a fun little exercise.

I’ll try to post some pics later this week after I move it.

Categories
Bread

Kitchen Equipment Falling Apart

First, we’ve had a Keurig coffee maker for a couple of years now. It died this past week. We didn’t do a rendition of Taps for it, but we certainly missed it. We tried to fall back to our previous coffee maker and had a bit of a time figuring out the right ratios of grinds-to-water. I’m pretty sure I’ve got extra hair in places I didn’t before. But more importantly, we realized a not-so obvious other benefit to the Keurig- we used less coffee grounds to make an acceptable cup of coffee. The Wife and I both noticed it this past week- when I mentioned it this morning the Wife concurred, replying “I thought I noticed the same thing, but thought it might just be me.” She went out an purchased a new Keurig today to replace it. They’ve made some changes, like getting rid of the charcoal filter in the water tank. Also, it appears our old Keurig had been dying a slow death because our first cups with the new one were noticeably hotter than what we’d been accustomed to. Definitely for the better.

I also wanted to pass along that I had to replace our Kitchenaid 7 Qt- yes, the one we’d just purchased in December. That clicking sound I described on numerous occasions only got worse. More recently, it had turned into a horrendous grinding noise when making the dough. It made it through it’s final bit of dough last night, but I couldn’t hold onto it any longer. It was only a matter of time before it gave out entirely. So I called Williams Sonoma and to my pleasant surprise, they said they’d take it back and exchange it for another one. I assume they handle returning the broken one to Kitchenaid. Naturally, mine was the first they’d had returned. Here’s hoping I don’t have to return this one.

Speaking of the last dough I made, I tried something a little different. Mom had mentioned how she’d seen a loaf of bread made on Food Network where they used ice water and refrigerated the dough. I’ve refrigerated dough, but never used iced water when making the dough. The idea is to extend the time for the yeast to fully develop by retarding its development with the cold, thereby improving the flavor of the bread. I’d never tried it, it sounded interesting so I gave it a shot. I can say that it does make for a nice loaf of dough, but the hard part is allowing enough time for the dough to properly warm up again. In reality, I probably should have given mine a lot longer to do so.

Categories
Misc

April Fools?

After all the warm weather from a week ago, it was bit disappointing that I had to get back into the fire-starting routine at night to keep the house from getting to chilled. Today isn’t the coldest day, but when I woke up this morning there was a fresh layer of snow on the ground.

As I type this, it’s continuing to snow, albeit at a pretty pedestrian pace. In light of tomorrow’s date, it seemed a bit like Mother Nature has been playing a fast one on us, what with all the warm weather and now having it snow. Yay Spring!

Categories
Family

OK- We’ll Ask

The lass got to spend more shopping time with the Wife tonight. The Wife passed on an amusing exchange with the lass during the ride home.

the lass: Mom, can me and my brother go to Meme and Grandpa’s house again this Summer without you?

the Wife: Of course- you really like going to Meme and Grandpa’s house?

the lass: Yep. We get to make my salad and my brother’s potatoes.

the Wife: What’s your salad?

the lass: It’s got lettuce and tomatoes and cucumbers and carrots and croutons in it and I like it better than your salad.

I’ll interrupt this conversation to note that during the summer we pretty regularly serve the kids a salad. It almost always consists of the exact same ingredients.

Back to the conversation:

the Wife: Well, how come you like it better?

the lass: Because I make it.

the Wife: Why don’t you make it here at home?

the lass: Because you never ask.

the Wife: OH….what are your brother’s potatoes?

the lass: Potatoes.

the Wife: Are they made with anything?

the lass: Potatoes.

The Wife gave up trying to get further details at that point.

Categories
Family

The Boy Finishes the Book

Way back in December, I read The Invention of Hugo Cabret and mentioned the boy was interested enough to read it.

Well, it wasn’t always easy and it definitely took a little bribery along the way, but the boy finally finished the book tonight. Our final carrot for him has been he had to finish it before we’d let him see the movie. When he started today, he had about 100 pages to go. Fortunately for him, the majority of them were pictures and he managed it.

When it was done, he was all smiles from ear-to-ear. He’s quite proud of himself for getting through it. The Wife and I are too.

Now the trick will be getting him to try another one.

Categories
Family

Fixing Mistakes

Having finished her sandwich, but still being hungry, the lass was searching for something else to eat. So I pulled out some strawberries and blueberries and offered them as options. She did some kind of funny thing with her head which I interpreted as shaking her head “No.” So, I put them back in the fridge and left her to her own devices to pick something.

It turns out, my interpretation of the funny-head-thing was incorrect. She was actually just looking back and forth at the two options really fast. Or something. When I turned back around she was walking with the strawberries and blueberries back to her seat to finish her lunch.

She’d stacked the blueberry container on top of the strawberry container, and about half-way back to her seat, semi-disaster struck. The blueberry container fell, hit the floor, opened up and spilled half a pint of blueberries all over the floor.

The lass’ first reaction… was to whip her head around and look at me.

There was a time when the kids were younger where I would have scolded her for being careless, or whatever other fault might have led to the box of blueberries getting dumped on the floor. We did the same thing with the boy. I think a direct result of those choices were to make the kids terrified of making those mistakes. I remember as the boy got older and more capable and those mistakes continued to happen, the boy would get mad and sulk. The lass too, would have her own version of that reaction. The result was a tempering of my own reaction and shifting gears to get them to act to clean up the mess.

The lass’ instant head-turn was an artifact of that whole dynamic. She was checking to see if I was going to blow my stack or otherwise get on her case. Fortunately, I’ve learned a little bit and I barely reacted at all. I told her something to the effect “You can just pick them up and we’ll wash them off, no big deal.” She set the strawberries down and then got down on the floor and (carefully!) fixed the blueberry container so more blueberries didn’t end up on the floor. I went and grabbed her a bowl, and she spent the next couple of minutes cleaning up the mess. Then I washed them up and that was the end of it.

I’ve never been one to claim infallibility on my part. When it comes to something like parenting, it can be difficult to determine when I’ve made a mistake versus a judgment call that could have gone any of a number of ways. Further complicating matters, there are sometimes just flatout unpleasant moments that happen. All I can do is be a little introspective, and try to judge my actions, or inactions, for those less-than-scripted moments. I know I won’t always get them right and it may even take a few iterations to realize my mistake. But at least I can work to fix them.

Categories
Misc

Removing Ticks

And now for something off the beaten track…

I got home late from racquetball last night and on the way, I called the Wife to see how the evening with the kids went. No problems, but she informed me that the cat had 2 ticks on him- one on the chin, the other on his neck. The cat was outside then, but she was hoping I’d take care of it.

I didn’t. At least, not when I got home.

When I got up this morning, both kids started in on me as well. “The cat has ticks you have to remove Dad” or some variation thereof. I finally got around to it tonight after he came back in for the night.

If you’ve ever coated a tick in vaseline or butter or simply pulled the sucker out with a tweezer, allow me to inform you there’s a really simple, pain free (for the pet) and mess free way to remove the tick. Using a pair of tweezers, turn the tick counter-clockwise while gently pulling. If you’re fingers are deft enough, use those instead of the tweezers. That’s it. It might take 2 or 3 revolutions before it comes off and it will do so without tearing apart and leaving its head in the animal. In fact, it will be quite alive. My usual method of disposal is to flush them, although the pair from tonight went in the fireplace.

Your semi-useful piece of trivia for the day.

Categories
Misc

Recent Reading

While I’ve been using my Nook Tablet for general email and web consumption purposes, I’ve also put it to use with some reading as well. Rooting it and installing the Kindle app has paid dividends because the Wife had some interesting books that I’ve read. Or should I say, some books I was interested in reading, both because they recently were made into high profile movies.

The first was The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo. It was a fast read, but the subject matter is extremely dark. Stieg Larson is not very charitable to his homeland with the story, as he gives the distinct impression that a majority of men have serious misogynistic tendencies. His descriptions of the violations visited on the women in his stories are brutal and unforgiving, like he wants the reader to cringe. So to, was the second book The Girl Who Played With Fire. Although on the whole, the second book was weaker than the first, as the ending is extremely weak. Larson ventures jumps right across the believability line with the final sequence his heroine is subjected to. In fact, it ticked me off so much I’ve put off reading the 3rd book because I felt the 2nd book should have just continued and it was such an obvious ploy to create a 3rd story. Unfortunately, I likely relent and read the 3rd book to see how the story finally resolves. I’m sure it will involve even more serious depredation of women, which frankly is something that can only be read so much before I choose to look away for awhile- another reason I’m taking a break from the story.

Another story with a dark plot line is the more recent The Hunger Games. It too is a fast read- I sat and read it yesterday in it’s entirety. It’s clearly geared towards teens. One thing I found interesting is that from all the movie reviews and previews I read, I was expecting a lot of minor character development for the likes of, for instance, Cinna and Haymitch. But the reality is the book really doesn’t develop them much because the story is told through the first person account of Katniss. Therefore, the only real character development in the book is Katniss- everything is told through her eyes and her perception of her world. Also, as I was reading I felt I was really reading a screenplay. When compared against a story like Game of Thrones, there’s not much in the way of picture painting. The story basically develops a plot and keeps it moving. Of course, with a target audience of teens that makes sense- just get on with the story, who cares about all the minutiae of developing vivid scenes and towns and the like.

But again, the story is based on the abuse of power and the extent that those with that power will go to hold onto it. The Hunger Games are a futuristic Roman gladiator festival in the Colosseum. The difference is the contest pits teenagers from different Districts, all beholden to the Capitol, in a winner-take-all fight to the death. Why does the Capitol do this? Because it can, and each holding of the Games reminds the other Districts of their helplessness against the Capitol. The story tracks Katniss’ preparation for and participation in the Games. In the meantime, the people in the Capitol view it as a version of American Idol. A vicious future society in deed.

Of the three, I definitely wouldn’t let any but the most mature teen read the Stieg Larson novels. Similarly, The Hunger Games are not light fare in terms of subject matter, and should be treated accordingly. I won’t give out ages since kids are all over the map there. Any parent would do themselves a service to read the story, or at least familiarize themselves with it to some extent. If for no other reason than to know what the kids are talking about these days. Suffice it to say, the boy and the lass won’t be reading any of these, or having them read to them, any time soon.

Categories
Misc

Still Lighting Fires

After the past couple of weeks, I figured I was done with fires until the Fall.

Not quite.

I’ve had to start fires the past couple of nights to keep the house from getting too chilled. And it looks like I’ll be continuing to do so for potentially the next week, with a couple night in the 20’s. Should be interesting for the plants.

But the house will still be warm. I may yet use up my remaining seasoned cord wood.

Categories
Woodworking

Varnish Can Warp Wood

I’ve been finishing some shelf surfaces with Waterlox varnish. I’ve used it before with good results, but only on pieces I’ve finished assembling. In this instance, the shelves have yet to be installed into the final piece.

I only finished one side of each shelf, and after I put a 2nd coat on, I noticed one of the long edges of the wood was off the table. So I then eyeballed the shelf from the side and could see a clear warp in the shelf. The shelf is about 2 feet wide and 3 feet long, so it’s easy to spot a warp.

It initially perplexed me, because I typically associate warping with one side of the wood drying out faster than the other. In this case, that didn’t seem possible since, theoretically, the varnish should have stopped the exposed side from drying. If anything, I’d have expected it to warp in the other direction.

But then I recalled something Dad told me about some varnishes- that they actually shrink when they cure. Since the same thing happened on both shelves, this seemed like a more plausible explanation, despite the fact that I’d never seen this affect before. So I flipped the shelves over and applied the finish to the other side, hoping to straighten the shelf out.

The warp in the shelf, by the way, was a potentially major problem for me because the shelves aren’t installed yet. The way I’ll be installing them involves a spline running along the side that fits into a support. The support is dead straight. Matching a warped shelf to a straight support makes for a miserable experience.

Fortunately, I guessed right and applying the finish to the other side of the shelf has straightened the shelf out. So I won’t have to worry about fighting with the shelves during assembly. But I also learned something else to keep an eye on when it comes to wood finishing.

Categories
Family

Choosing Well and Paying the Price

The boy and I had the afternoon to ourselves today. The Wife took the lass shopping. She gave the boy the option to come along, but he politely declined. What can I say? He’s a quick study…

So he and I had a pretty easy day, in all. A little catch with the football (Nerf- the other ones hurt his hands still), a little playing with the dogs, a little playing on the Wii and the next thing we knew it was dinner time. So I took him to Wendy’s, where he ate a triple-decker burger and fries and drink.

Then complained about a belly ache later that evening.

The lass and the Wife were gone almost until bed time. Considering it’s 45 minutes to their destination, that makes for about 7 hours worth of walking around and shopping. Personally, I say the boy chose well; even with the belly ache.

Categories
Bread

Better Bread Baking

I made a loaf of my Wonder Bread recipe today, but when it came time to bake it, I tried something different. Rather than bake it on a cookie sheet or in a loaf pan, I baked it on a cast iron griddle that I preheated in the oven. In essence, I was trying to simulate wood-fired stone oven baking.

With much of my reading about bread baking, one common theme I’ve come across from professional bakers is that their ovens are HOT. Real hot. Not only that, but the bread isn’t baked on pans, it’s baked right on the floor of the oven. As near as I can glean, this accomplishes a number of things necessary for good bread. For one, it caramelizes the bread- which is a fancy way of saying it gives the bread a nice crust. For two, placing the bread on the oven surface (which is HOT) causes steam to form in the oven. The steam humidifies the oven a bit allows for oven spring to occur in the bread.

So how did it work? Well, there are some glitches to work out. For one, I cooked at 450 (I typically cook this recipe at 400), which probably isn’t hot enough since I didn’t get a lot of steam formation when the dough hit the cast iron griddle. For another, I didn’t have corn meal to use on the peel. This was almost a deal breaker, because by the time the bread finished proofing on the peel, it was stuck. I had to use a spatula to loosen it up, which caused it to start deflating.

However, I did get some nice oven spring. In fact, it was more than enough to counteract the rough treatment the dough got while I was putting it in the oven. Also, the crust turned out real nice. One thing I did to simulate the wood-fired oven thing was to turn the heat down to 350 after about 10 minutes of baking. Basically, I was mimicking the cool down of a wood-fired oven. This was to prevent the crust from burning while the interior of the bread finished cooking.

So while it was hardly a glitch free attempt, the results were promising enough that I’ll likely continue to work with it. Oh, the rest of the family liked the result as well. Always an important threshold to achieve.

Categories
Family

I Don’t Take Orders from 5 Year Olds

Lately, the lass has taken to trying to boss me. Nothing too major, most stuff that skirts closer to the nagging side of the spectrum than and overt command. But it’s pretty clear that the intent is there.

One of the things she, inexplicably, likes to ding me for is cleaning up. I say ‘inexplicably’ because cleaning up is definitely not her strong suit either. So her comments almost take on a ‘pot calling the kettle black’ quality.

Except, sticking with the cookware metaphor, it’s more like a little tin cup talking to a witches cauldron… On second thought, let’s not push that metaphor too far.

The point is, aside from the usual levels of laziness, I have reasons for not doing something right then. Often times, it involves having a kid do the job instead.

Like that empty dish sitting in front of me after dinner? The one she’s wagging her finger at me and saying “Daaaaddy, you’ve got to put your dish in the dishwasher.” To which I calmly reply, “No, I don’t. That’s your job.” Right after she finishes the wad of food in her mouth and whatever is left on her plate. Sometimes she’ll try to “cute” her way out of it. Most times it doesn’t work. The one tactic she occasionally uses that does work is to take forever-and-a-day to finish her dinner. If I wait that long, things will be growing on my plate before she gets to it.

After another more overt attempt at telling me what to do, I informed her “I don’t take orders from 5 year olds.”

She giggled triumphantly and retorted “I’m not 5, I’m 6!”

I didn’t miss a beat: “I don’t take orders from them either.”

At that point, she put her hands on her hips, squinted her eyes at me while cocking her head to the side, smirked, and said nothing. Then she danced off to whatever was next at the time. I can only assume she couldn’t come up with a further retort at that time. Somehow I doubt that will always be the case.

Interestingly, the boy has not been trying to do likewise. Not that I’m complaining.

Because 3 people trying to boss me around is 3 too many.

Categories
Cub Scouts

First Pack Meeting

I didn’t have a chance to blog it last night, but it was my first official Pack Meeting as Cubmaster. My debut was helped by 2 things: one, with the graduation of our WEBELOS II Scouts we now have a small group and two, we had a presenter who end up taking up the bulk of the night. It’s always nice to be able to delegate.

So basically, I had an opening talk where I discussed this month’s Scouting core value of “compassion.” In all, probably the weakest part of what I did. One of the things I learned early on in the Den meetings is to try to not stand up and talk to the kids for too long. The kids don’t have a long enough attention span and standing up there discussing something like “compassion” just doesn’t hit their hot button. That said, I’m supposed to do my best and I kept it as brief as possible.

From there, our presenter for the night got to work. The Pack received it’s new charter and also received and award for the effort we put forth in promoting Scouting in our town. I had the previous Cubmaster on hand to receive the awards and charter because she had done most of the work in getting that stuff done. It was only right that she be recognized for her efforts.

After that, there was a fundraising sort of presentation. It’s one of those obligatory presentations that our local Council gives to all the Packs in the area. It actually has little to do with the kids and is aimed more at the parents, since they have the checkbooks. But the kids were real good and we were making good time, so I decided to reward them with a break to play a game.

The game was to work with a partner to carry 2 balloons across the room. This task proved more difficult than expected, mostly because the kids all just wanted to shoot across the room with their own balloon tucked under there chin but without their partner. The balloons served as a nice distraction all by themselves after the activity was over.

We then talked about the Summer Camps for scouting. This ended up taking a little longer than I anticipated, probably because I ended up talking quite a bit about how much fun the camp is to attend. Of course, I also ended up with a lot more to do since I have to coordinate the Camp for the Pack now.

The evening ended with some awards and rank badge presentations. A new Tiger Scout had earned his Bobcat badge, so I presented that to him, complete with a little speech about what he’d learned. Then I had the other Tigers come up so I could present them with their new Wolf neckerchiefs, since they had all crossed over previously at our Blue and Gold. The final award presentation was some Belt Loops that one of my Wolf Scouts had earned.

With that, I announced a couple of our upcoming events and closed the meeting. So not too bad, in all. I think for future pack meetings, I’d like to keep them more on the fun and active side. I’ve had some ideas about game nights and a bike rodeo or bike Spring-tuneup type theme. We’ve only got a couple more meetings to go for this school year though, so some of those ideas will have to wait.

Categories
Football

The Saga Ends

Well, it’s all over now. Manning goes to Denver. At this point, I think it’s safe to conclude that Manning is not at 100% because if he were, we would be seeing videos of his throwing. That said, it has to be close enough, like 95%-ish, that the Broncos are willing to pay him a lot of money to throw the rock for them. Of course, Manning’s QB prowess will be the story of the NFL for the first few weeks of the new season.

While on the topic, I’ll throw my hat in the ring with people who disagree with Manning “accepting” getting the number ’18’ jersey unretired by the Broncos so he could wear it. In particular, when Manning says he has a lot of respect for what it means to have a number retired for a team, then he should know that, quite frankly, the number is off limits. Frankly, it’s a classless move on his part, even if the other guy said he’d be ‘honored’ to have Manning wear the jersey. As others have noted, what else is the guy going to say? I’ll add only that the honor should be Manning’s, not Tripucka’s- I don’t care how assured of a spot in Canton Manning has.

Categories
Football

Dropping the Hammer

WOW

Roger Goodell did not muck around with the whole Saints bounty thing. I’ve just been reading a bit about it and I’m pretty sure most of these are firsts. The most surprising thing is that Sean Payton is gonged for the 2012 season. Even though I’d been following the story and it was pretty clear that Payton was in the know, I figured his punishment would be closer to wrist slap material.

Though I guess this is consistent with how Goodell has dealt with discipline in the league, both with players and management or coaches. He slapped the Patriots hard for the whole Spygate thing a few years back. He’s been tough with players for in season violations regarding illegal hits. Now, he’s continued with the coaches for the Saints.

I wonder if this will be enough to discourage the use of a bounty system. It seems absurd that something like that would even be necessary in the NFL, where winning is prized above all else. I mean, what more incentive do these guys need? As long as the whistleblower is protected, I suppose the risk will now be significant for any team that chooses to go there. (I’ve read about Jeremy Shockey being fingered as the whistleblower, but there’s been some pushback about that, so for now I’m assuming that the true whistleblower is still anonymous.)

I think overall, I’m in agreement with the penalties and it will be interesting to see what happens to the players. Football is a tough enough game as it is without some clown coming after a player to make a personal buck as part of some clandestine incentive system. It’s actually a little shocking to me the lack of vision on the part of the participating players. Sure, they’re all competing against each other, but they’re all part of the same thing and all those players have similar experiences. So going out there with the intent to hurt someone, when everyone knows that any play could be their last anyway, just seems gratuitous to say the least.

Categories
Computers

About Time

Remember Netzero? The free dial-up company from, like, 10 years ago? Well, I hesitate to say “They’re back”, because it’s more likely they never left. They just, kinda, slid to the background while wireless, cable and DSL took over as the pipelines to the internet.

Well, they’re rolling out a new “4G” offering. Engadget has the details. It looks like they rely on existing infrastructure to pull it off. If I were to guess, I’d say it won’t turn out well for them. But still, flyers like this is what it will take to break the current cell-carrier stranglehold on cell-based wireless data. It’ll be interesting to see where this leads.

Categories
Misc

Joining the Teeming Hoards

The Wife went out and treated herself to an iPad today. She was able to cash in on some bonus rewards through work and get some Best Buy gifts cards to take care of the purchase. Nothing too fancy (a funny statement considering the context), meaning no LTE and minimal memory. I had to help her get it setup on our network for email and various other login accounts.

I won’t bother with a review, since it’s been done in plenty of other places. I will say that the display is very impressive, but didn’t blow me away like I expected. I suspect the Nook had something to do with this. Not that it’s a retina display, but it’s still very good and when held at arm’s length, pixels aren’t exactly obvious. But then, it’s not a totally fair comparison because there’s no camera and the app selection is a bit more limited. Regardless, the display didn’t impress me as much as I expected.

One app I will comment on is Star Walk which the Wife installed this afternoon. It’s one of those apps that shows and labels the stars when pointing the iPad at the sky. The Wife took the boy out back and worked with it a bit, then the lass and I got a turn. We were able to pick out Mars, Jupiter and Venus, as well as a slew of constellations. Very cool.

I’ll be curious as to how much the Wife uses it versus her laptop. I’m guessing it’ll become a pretty normal part of her routine.