On junk mail

After reading Cindy's and Bridgey's posts about junk mail, I'd like to mention that Catalog Choice worked for me. Even if you (like me) don't think it's my job to deal with sales people and phone trees, they make it easy to opt out of catalog mailings. Almost all of mine went through, except for a Mormon outdoor store who didn't do the Christian and outdoorsy thing to remove me at my request. So I had to call them and let them know that I won't buy anything again unless they stop sending paper--which they didn't.

While I am at it, Get Human is invaluable when dealing with companies. The site tells you the number codes to by pass the electronic voices.

Greetings, Sonny Chiba

A couple of weeks ago, I gave myself a Hattori knife for Easter. I've had a couple of really good German and Japanese knives for about ten years, but this thing is scary hair shaving sharp. Frankly, I am a bit scared every time I use it. It cuts through tomatoes, peppers, meat and miscellaneous veggies basically by putting the cutting edge on top and watching it melt through the object. In one case, I accidentally cut through a polypro cutting mat. Obviously not a bread/chopping/deboning knife, though.

Thankfully, I stopped intimidating tomatoes in pseudo Japanese slang before using it.

Microsoft

What went on in this programmer's head is anyone's guess.

WTF doesn't even begin to cover this

Quote from a technical discussion board.

First off, excel is not a database, but it's a really easy way for non-tech folds to look at data. And no, Access is not the answer. It's too hard and confusing.

I work as a deputy auditor for a large county in Ohio.

We've got 400,000 properties. We have a file of the sales / transfers for each parcel. An average of 6 sales per parcel = 2.4 million lines

Now, we can split the data based on years, type of sale, type of property etc., but when you need a report that spans those boundaries, it makes you think "Gee, it'd be nice if Excel could just support an infinite number of rows, or let me set how many rows I wanna deal with"

And of course, over the course of time, the number of sales / transfers/splits/merges/who knows what will continually increase the size of this file.

pics

Freaking windy out on the coast today. Oh yeah, I'm taking entirely too many pics of this bridge.

No time to blog

Well, between loads of work, being out on weekends, and simply nothing interesting going on, I have neglected this blog. Sorry. So, here's a pic of Point Arenas from Easter.And a seal rock outside Santa Cruz from last weekend.

Chicken

For some obscure reason, the temple of overpriced food, aka Whole Foods had a 99c sale on organic chicken. And winter truffles.

So I put a $5 fryer with $4 of truffle medallions tucked under the skin in a 450F oven for 40 minutes and served it with the world's easiest salad: tomatoes sliced almost all the way to the stem end to make a fan; stuffed with slices of fresh mozzarella, and topped with basil chiffonade, olive oil, a bit of lime juice, and S&P.

Pretty good according to the guests. I think I add some lemon zest to the oil the next time.

About those butt wipes in San Ramon

Not to rile anyone up, but that's what it looked like today from Lands End Trail.

The New Physics

Larry Spring, the Ft Bragg genius I mentioned before now has added Flash animations to his web site. Take a look if you want to have a good laugh.

PS. Yes, he's serious.

Purple food

No, not jello! Mashed purple potatoes and purple cauliflower with pan fried pork tenderloin. 

I got the blue stuff at the Berkeley farmers market last week and those were the leftovers. The whole process took ten minutes:

1. Cut the potatoes in half inch cubes and separate the cauliflower into small trees
2. Put in a tupperware container and nuke for 10 minutes
3. Add a bit of butter and milk.
4. Nuke for two more minutes
5. Dump in food processor and pulse into the desired consistency
6. Add s&p

The tenderloins were even quicker. 

1. Cut in half inch slices
2. Coat thinly with flour
3. Sprinkle with s&p
4. Fry in a hot pan with butter and olive oil
5. Take out and replace with finely chopped shallot
6. Add a half cup of white wine
7. Reduce, s&p, add a bit of corn meal slurry

Combine and serve with the rest of the bottle--in this case 2006 Clos du Val Sauvignon Blanc.

Art

I bought this Doutreleau poster on sale yesterday. It looks awesome in "person".

  

Lunch and dinner

I picked up some great boule at Model Bakery in St. Helena on Saturday, so lunch was obviously artichoke cheese sandwiches. Two slices of bread, some Dubliner cheese (I was out of Gruyere) and a few marinated artichokes on one of them. Then into the toaster oven at work for one round of toasting. Slap the pieces together and eat. 

Dinner was a variation on this. I don't like pecans, and accidentally chopped a bit of Italian parsley before I noticed, so my version was with walnuts (roasted in the dry pan before the tofu went in) and a parsley/cilantro mix. Amazingly, the end result didn't taste like tofu or Brussels sprouts, but really really good. Oh, I also used veggie stock instead of salt and added a few grinds of pepper at the end. 

It only took six weeks

But I finally got around to uploading the rest of the Big Sur pictures.

Two soups

The first one was the best lunch I had in months: Brazilian Fish Gumbo at Wappos in Calistoga. I still have no idea what was Brazilian about it, but from the taste of it, it was

• A boatload of shrimp and scallops
• A bit of cod 
• Red Thai chili
• Coconut milk
• Fish stock (I guess 1-1 with the coconut milk) 
• Onions
• Plantains (I think)--maybe that was the Brazilian part
• Garlic
• Lemon juice

I'll cook it pretty soon, but I'd probably omit the cod. It really didn't add much and tended to overwhelm the scallops.

The second one was the world's laziest roasted squash soup I just made for dinner:

• Toss two cups of cubed squash (I used butternut), a cup of cut carrots, and a sliced onion with olive oil and pepper.
• Put in a 450 degree oven or under the broiler for 20 minutes or until almost done and caramelized. A baking sheet with aluminum foil works well.
• Throw in blender with a cup of veggie stock
• Warm up in a sauce pan, add parsley, and season with salt and pepper

You could probably add some protein like pork or chicken, butter, or maybe cream, but it really doesn't need it. Total time, 25 minutes, total prep and cleanup: 5 minutes. The leftovers separated a bit, a dash of cornstarch would probably take care of that. 

Politics

I just made the first political donation of my life: a few hundred dollars to Barack Obama. The main reasons were:

1. As a resident, I finally can.
2. I don't want Hillary in the White House.
3. I don't want John McCain in the White House.
4. I don't want Huckleberry in the White House.
5. I want the Dem establishment and super delegates to get hit where it hurts.
   
6. The only other Dem I'd vote for can't run because of the 22nd Amendment; the only Rep I'd vote for can't run because of article 2, section 1, clause 5. (Go Ah-nuld!)
   
7. Getting Obama and a Democratic congress elected will do more for the environment and the disadvantaged than any amount that I can spend on Greenpeace (not the US whackos) or Doctors Without Borders.
8. I don't want any more people who's (trans)forming political experience was Watergate in the White House.

Knifework

I can probably handle a knife as well as most American chefs. But every time I watch Jacques Pepin dice an onion, I just want to kill myself. 

Then I come to my senses and really want to kill Paula Deen.

Joseph. Mallord. William...

Where are you when I need you? After the Schulz museum, I drove to Dillon Beach and saw the weirdest lighting I've ever seen on the coast.

Happiness is a wet puppy

Or something like that. I drove to a sale in Santa Rosa today (didn't buy anything), when I walked out on the store, I googled the place on my iPhone and saw that the Charles M. Schulz museum was only a mile down the road. 

OK, Disney, turn over in your grave, because this is the happiest place one earth. It's fairly small and doesn't show a lot of stuff--maybe 400 strips and CMS' furniture and writing desk. But everyone, myself and people between 15 and 90 included, walked around with a happy grin on their faces. Two things I learned--CMS did the guy with the paper bag in 1953, and one of his early characters looked a lot like Stewie.

Oh and the ice rink is right next door.

The day I went out to buy a Acura RSX

Didn't quite work out...I came home with a used Rabbit with 8000 miles on it. 

Big Sur

New Years Eve in Monterey with free museums--including the exhibit about a time when the US invaded countries by accident and actually apologized. White rappers, potato funnel cake, and a couple of hours arguing with a Brit barkeeper about why exactly English soccer sucks.

New Years included a leisurely drive past Big Sur and lunch in a t-shirt in unseasonably warm Santa Cruz.

Good Times