30 Day challenge recap: bikes to work and blog posts

The content may have suffered, but with the backlog/catch up clause, 30 days of blogging is possible, if mostly loaded onto weekends.  It doesn't seem to have made much headway on home improvement projects as originally anticipated.  The "throw a party and cram to prepare for it" approach seems to be quite a bit more effective.

In terms of biking, this turned out to be far harder than expected.  I prefer bike commuting.  However, I discovered some hiccups along the way that I haven't fully ironed out a strategy to overcome.  For instance, wanting to rest after having biked to San Diego over the weekend, inclement weather, very early meetings and work obligations offsite.  My general sense that the bike home on less bike-friendly roads in the dark was not worth the hazard, but I did make some progress in finding marginally safer/faster paths.  I pulled off 6 trips, which is more than I had wracked up over the rest of the past year and I finish them in far less ragged and bruised shape than the inaugural rides.  I will keep chipping away at this, if only to increment "steps" on my fitbit, but will give myself a break on every day adherence for the time being.

Next up:  

Makeup challenge:  wear some amount of makeup daily for 30 days.  MacGyver says this is silly, and he may be right.  I wanted an "easier" challenge chaser as the last two felt pretty brutal compared to Mormon challenge and recording spend.  It may be an interesting one to explore the psychological effects-- it isn't quite as much of an all in financial commitment as say, "dressing fancy." I'm sort of curious if my skin is still inclined to breakouts that made makeup challenging in my teens and early 20's.  

15 min cleans per day challenge:  this is sort of an extension of blogging.  I got more peace of mind out of the Sink Reflections style 15 minutes of tidying than I did from blogging about projects and what not daily.  While this won't cover big home improvement undertakings, it might at least make it feel like the house isn't backsliding into chaos.  

Bed upgrades

Rho has already put a speed hole in the "new" flannel sheets we got for christmas 2013 and thought we had saved until he was grown up enough not to chew through everything... sigh

That didn't stop us from celebrating a mostly-finished bedroom with a larger comforter (king size) so I wouldn't wake up, hemmed into a tiny ball by two dogs with a cold draft coming in through the inch of space between the mattress and the sleeping bag comforter.  woot.

MacGyver also reinstalled a reading light over the bed which had previously been strictly decorative.

diy croutons

In the same vein of using bread on things which don't have to go into canning jars.  We also have a burgeoning selection of various salad greens in the window boxes and sometimes just a straight green salad leaves me cold.  Perhaps having some croutons on hand will help... plus I still have 2 cans of swiss onion soup to go through which is suggested to be served with croutons.

 



3 slices of bread, cubed

Shake in a bowl of
olive oil
salt
pepper
mediterranean seafood spice seasoning (because I don't have individual italian herbs on hand and want to get rid of this)

Spread on a cookie sheet or in this case the rotating tray which came with the oven.
Bake in oven at 400 for about 30 mins.
Allow to cool.  Transfer to a ziplock bag.

Bread pudding for breakfast

Ma-epic gets inordinately excited about "bread pudding" whenever it is on a menu.  I think she has something different in mind.  That said, we had a post-camping trip loaf of whole wheat taking up valuable real estate in the freezer and I was reluctant to embark on any soup-making items for want of canning jars this morning (see smokey lemonade).

3 slices of bread, cubed and arranged in 3 silicon muffin cups or other oven-safe container

Whisk in a bowl...
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/6 cup of sugar give or take
dash of salt
dash of vanilla extract

Pour over slices of bread.
Load into the oven at 250 for 30 mins

Worth repeating... sort of like gooey french toast cobbler without the syrup and served as a dessert.  Evidently you can also add things like rum and raisins for more exotic concoctions.

Smoked Lemonade

Found one solution for the heap of lemons we harvested.  Checking at Whole Foods, organic lemons go for $1 per, so we had a $70 or so yield off the tree.

I read on the internet that some folks had created "smoked lemonade." That seemed pretty cool, so we halved the majority of the lot and let them stew for 30 mins or so in the smoker.  I can't say that the smoky flavor is overpowering, if confronted with the same choice again, I might have voted to leave them in a bit longer... as did some of the recipes I later found.  But we do have a pretty tasty beverage with a hint of a smokey finish.

boil these together to make simple sugar
1.75 parts white sugar
1 part water

create a sweetened lemon concentrate
1 part smoked lemon juice
1 part simple sugar

dilute concentrate to taste
1 part concentrate
4-10 parts water

Convert to adult beverage
rum to taste

Gardening Update

So all of those herb and winter plant starts I loaded up at the start of this 30 day challenge are overrunning their gladware cups.

I transplanted some of the artichoke starts (both green and purple) into the window box where the older choke starts seem to have taken hold...  one intrepid soybean plant out there at the end with teeny pods.  I'm not sure why I have such bad luck with soybeans, the last batch all seemed to have molded in their cups or got a false start on their first leaves without any roots and stayed that way.  

This is actually a waterfall.  The drainage holes on the 2 tiers of window boxes first drip from the first tier (artichokes, etc.) into the second tier (pictured-- sour gherkin cukes, misc salad greens, beets, mini bok choy, purple basil, etc.), into a 3rd tier on the straw bale of dwarf kale, cilantro, chard and whatnot, or into a potted Big Max pumpkin planter, or into the spinach tower on the left.  I wedged a window box into the bottom of the cascade and inserted a couple kinds of basil and some marjoram.  Hopefully when the waterfall hits homeostasis, this will be a sufficiently soupy spot for them.
 

 The glad cups this freed up got filled with beans.  I'm pretty sure it is not proper bean season at the moment, but I have so many types and I'm pretty blase about them, so I won't be as concerned with transplanting them (aka abandoning) in remote parts of the yard.

 Made an apple cider vinegar cocktail for the 2 blueberry plants which I have not yet managed to kill...

 Transplanted a couple of the broccoli and cauliflower starts into the molecule garden which is normally pretty arid, but we've had a couple days of rain and hopefully it will persist.  I also dump out dirty chicken water here every day or so and I know broccoli managed to grow (if not thrive exactly) here in years past.

My indoor peas were looking pretty pathetic, so I inserted 2 fava beans and pot of arugula starts to keep them company.  Fava beans are the "it" seed of the season.  100% germination rates, always sprouted earlier than everything planted concurrently, and balloon into these big bushy plants that can hold their own against crab grass.  

I could already see some volunteer weeds starting to sprout around the new grey water marsh, so I supplemented with some scotch kale starts and a little bed of chamomile.

Garlic Dip

This is more like garlic mashed potatoes than garlic dip per se...

I hadn't thought of using it on crackers...

3 small potatoes peeled diced and boiled
3 cloves garlic peeled
1/4 cu hard tofu
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
salt to taste

combine inputs in food processor and blend until smooth.

Lemons, oh meyer!

Even though MaGyver's Christmas 2012 diminutive lemon tree still looks pretty stressed and defoliated from drinking too heavily from the laundry greywater pipeline, it seems like all the fruit it set ripened.  These pretty much fell off the branches, so now we need some good lemon recipes...

Souped up french onion

The author claimed that I would be amazed when the 1.5 cups of grated swiss cheese gelled into a uniform consistency with the rest of the broth.  Maybe I didn't stir it enough...

Either way, I heart cheese, grilled onions, and garlic, so this turned out pretty tasty, if a bit stringy.

2 onions chopped
2 garlic cloves minced
2 tbs butter
2 tsp ground mustard

combine in pot and cook until soft (approx 10 mins)

2 tbs flour
2 tbs sherry (or take a page from Julia Child's approach...18:17...22:20... 27:10...the more the better ;)  )
2 cups water
1 tsp horseradish (be careful, life has no undo button)

add gradually, stir thoroughly

1.5 cu milk warmed in microwave
1.5 cu packed shredded swiss cheese (or in my case, just shred the entire brick...)

stir until amazed, or too hungry to wait longer.

add pepper, possibly more mustard/horseradish to taste, dash of paprika to garnish, etc.


et voila!  breakfast of champions.  I haven't had the heart to tell fitbit that this is probably more calorically rich than the 345 calorie Uno's french onion soup equivalent I found... but I'm down 3 lbs since submitting to tomagotchi 2.0, so perhaps this is acceptable.

Anarchist Book #2 Review: Days of War Nights of Love

"...this book isn't designed to be used in the way a 'normal' book is.  Rather than reading it from one cover to the other, casting perfunctory votes of disapproval or agreement along the way (or even deciding to 'buy in' to our ideas, in a passive consumer fashion), and then putting it on the shelf as another inert possession, we hope you will use this as a tool in your own efforts--not just to think about the world, but also to change it."
True to form, I hopped around this book, starting with the chapter "A is for Anarchy," and dutifully applying the "exclamation point test," in which you substitute an exclamation point for a period from time to time to determine if the "dry political theory such as this text" is relevant.  OK, the opening vignette about the stages of teen rebellion put me to sleep, but the idea of an exclamation point test was kind of cool.  Likewise, CrimethInc has a funny habit of flipping the text upside down from time to time which did amazing things to my brain in the physical copy, but irritated the crap out of me when I initially tried to read the free PDF version of this.

I skipped ahead to the W is for Work section, which didn't strike me as particularly revolutionary.  It was a lot of anecdotes from people who opted to drop out of the workforce in favor of a life of squatting and scavenging.  I had read a bit too much Rand diatribes on moochers to really aspire to be that wage-earner who can support a lot of friends that they all seemed to laud.  But it did make me think the Financial Independence folk are onto something about having a clear bead on understanding how much your lifestyle takes to support and how much interest your personal savings is able to provide towards those costs.  That said, in the face of unstable currencies and potential mass inflation, I'm not entirely sure the plan of early retirement will work without an infusion of some of this anarchist scrappyness.  

Given my hummingbird approach to this book, I'm not sure if I'm technically "done" reading.  I'm not, actually.  I would go a couple pages, skim some stuff that seemed tiresome and overly naive and idealist, stumble upon something really profound, and need to pause.  For instance, the concept of morality being an extension of religion which is just a rarefied form of hierarchical control of people's lives.  Yawn.  "Cry me a river, build me a bridge, and get over it," as a surprisingly articulate 1st grader put it when interviewed about gay marriage.  But then I got to wondering if we were to redesign morality at an individual level from the ground up, what would that look like?  Would it have so many etiquette riders from bygone eras?  Could it be simplified to a single mantra?  If it was something as all-encompassing as Love, that's great, but how does one engage with sociopaths?  Wouldn't something like the Golden Rule or even something more draconian like Hammurabi's code make more sense?  What if we lit reviewed happiness research or evolutionary biology/survivalist findings and used that as a moral starting point?  I passed out pondering these possibilities... and woke up thinking about what it would mean to instead of focusing on "saying no" more often, with all of the guilt and negativity that comes with it, instead focus on "saying yes!" emphatically.  Approval vote the handful of things we're passionate about and be flaky, non-commital, non-responsive on the rest.

In short, this books seems like a keeper, if only as intermittent mindfloss.  Read a couple pages or get arrested by a couple of the disturbing co-opted pictures.  Try not to get too caught up in the teen angst undercurrent, eventually find something redeemingly thought provoking to give you pause and possibly change your ways.  Rinse and repeat.

Day 1: Fitbit Zip

In going through healthcare enrollment materials, it would seem that we will be getting a bonus fitness stipend into our HSA's if we log a certain number of steps and a certain number of calories of consumption over a certain interval.  Cool.

That seemed like exactly what the Fitbit and accompanying iphone app accomplish.  So I ordered a Zip, based on reviews that the sleep tracker/vibrating alarm/altitude/"shower proof" features in the upmarket models doubled the price for diminishing impact.

Setup was easy.  Ready to go in about 5 mins between installing the battery and downloading the app.  On day one (11/19), I burned 19000 calories doing hardly anything across 3K steps or 1.43 miles and a measly 6 active mins.  I ate something in the 17000 range (well, mostly drank/slurped).  The only sort of dodgy thing was they said I could press the bit to cycle through all of the stats it tracks.  I could wake it up, but couldn't always get it to display the field I was interested in.  No matter, all of this is on the iPhone app for reference.

On deck for today will be seeing what bike riding to work looks like to the fitbit because there is a breakfast burrito waiting for me in the break room freezer.  Hopefully it doesn't rain on me!  :)  or as fitbit would say :P

'Zine review: Terror Incognita

I asked Moxie for a list of things he's read that have haunted him.  I'm now reading through these.

The request came from a concern that with our increasingly niche'd and targeted markets and dwindling attention spans, we can get into a weird groupthink situation with ourselves.  I only seek out content that appeals to my current interests.  Retailers, google, etc are more than happy to quickly introduce me to more of the same.  This can make it really tricky to broaden one's perspective, particularly outside of an educational environment where you are compelled to read (or skim) some things you would not have picked up if left to your own devices.

My brother confronted the bugged form of this phenomenon when he bought me a 3 wolves moon shirt as a gift.  His Amazon feed became over-run with similar ironic reviews for other products he had no interest in acquiring.  I wonder how much we get wrapped in advertising we're actually interested in and begin to think that the whole world is running Ragnars, contemplating steampunk boots from Zappos or a camo bikini top from SwimOutlet without actually realizing it.  The ads follow you!

At any rate, MacGyver played Moxie's Hold Fast documentary about his adventures salvaging a pretty dingy dinghy and cruising it around various ports of call... He's also a pretty respected hacker/info sec dude, so I would rate him as an "interesting person."  Who happens to be of an anarchist bent.

One of the things he suggested was a free to download Zine from CrimethInc.  Terror Incognita.

True to form, this was one of the more challenging things I've hunkered down to read in a while.

Some points the writers made resonated with me....

There are some facets of our world that we were not asked explicit permission to participate in, we were born into (i.e. we can vote, but we were never asked if we wanted to create a society which chooses its leaders through the process of voting).

These norms which we take for granted probably do color our world view and beliefs in ways we cannot really appreciate unless we find a way to become outsiders to our own culture.

Yes, there are spontaneous circumstances where if you had asked my consent to do something beforehand, I would have said no, but in retrospect, I am glad that we did that.  On brief reflection, it would seem there is usually a seductive element to how we undertook that adventure.  Maybe we did it because of a charismatic ring leader (he/she's sexy), or because we thought doing so would rebrand ourselves as the sort of person who does edgy things (I want to appear sexy), or some other reason in a similar vein.

OK, fine, there is some power at taking a long hard look and possibly poking the things you find scary, the people you find detestable.  This could be a clue to what you dislike about yourself, what (unnecessary?) limitations the norms your culture has imposed, etc.  In short, scaring yourself at regular intervals is probably good for your personal growth.

But then the writers lost me on a bunch of other arguments in their thesis...

I don't think smashing windows creates the change we want to see in this world.  Maybe that makes me a conformist.  Maybe there is an irony to saying consumerist culture is ruining our environment and then going out on a shopping spree at a green washed store.  But I think there is also an irony to destroying the precious resources we have (not even we-- strangers who happen to be close to where we are rioting-- have) to make similar points, or to terrify by making no coherent point at all?  The authors make a comment about a failed attempt to convert a pride parade into a riot in boystown of Chicago.  They failed to be seductive.  Dude, I lived in that neighborhood-- the gay community put a lot of effort into making it look distinctive and feel safe.  Of course the residents are going to right your overturned trashcans and stay your hand if you try to smash their windows or spraypaint their fabulous rainbow colored fire hydrants while you are "participating" in their parade.  

I don't think we need to delve into the queer movement and how its definition has evolved over time and with different users to start to understand anarchy.  This just seemed like the writers trying to resign the gay facets of themselves with the anarchist facets of themselves (and possibly work in a humblebrag about how often they get laid at riots).

The same goes for their tiresome allusions to Foucault, Marx, and Hobbes-- I felt like I was trapped in a University of Chicago lit review of great social thinkers but with a superficial treatment from 10,000 feet.  Either you are going to write a (very dry) essay about how anarchy fits within [insert social classic here]'s framework for the nerdy set, or you are going to explain it like I'm five for the attention-starved proletariat.  Trying to do both accomplishes neither besides making me suspect that you are a naive early 20's liberal arts grad with limited life experience hiding behind big words and name dropping to discourage anyone from disagreeing with you.  But I digress.

In short, I agree with about 33% of what the authors are saying, but it was still worth a read to stretch my comfort zone.

Drunkin updates

This is technically one calendar day after converting Big Max into a carboy; I am woefully behind on keeping up with my blog per day 30 day challenge.  It is November 19th.

MacGyver had to swap the order-- he usually adds the yeast after transferring wart to the fermenting vessel, but that was impractical given how small of a hole he had drilled in the pumpkin, so he mixed the yeast in prior.  In retrospect, this might have been a good candidate for a lambic beer because we wouldn't care as much if wild yeast messed up our brewing "equipment."

The airlock has not been stolen by a Klee Kai and taken to the backyard yet.

Both Max and the remaining 4.5 gallons in a glass carboy are now bubbling their locks at a good clip.

So far so good!  Can't wait for a blind taste test of these two.

Padi Advanced Diver: Navigation

As we watched the obligatory neon-colored 1990's PADI advanced diver video, MacGyver offered such choice comments as, "These days, that camera fits on my head... and does video footage."  Probably for the best that we were drinking heavily during this section of the book work.  As hokey and consumerist as PADI is, I have to admit we had a pretty good time on our first "advanced" dive where we focused on navigation.

Master Diver Gary took us to Crescent Bay which was a little less heavily trafficked as a shore dive than our usual training dive haunt on Shaw's cove.  He's a little on the surly-elitist side, so I was mostly envisioning trying to squeeze into the neon pink 7mm ultra-restrictive wetsuit he had rented me ineffectually before giving up and sitting in the car while MacGyver did the drills.  We stayed at about 19 feet for most of the dive, practicing 10 kick + 90 degree turns with natural navigation and compass assistance.  A bit tough to rotate the bezel on a compass when your fingers only extend about 50% of the way into the fingers of your gloves.  I thought our air consumption would be super inefficient because we're relatively new, and MD Gary made comments about this continuously while in his dive shop (not to be confused with dive store).  Yet we stayed down for almost an hour and hadn't even hit the yellow less than 1000 psi zone on our console when it was time to head back.

MacGyver was also pretty stoked to have seen a 10 lb+ sheepshead fish.  I was surprised that baby Garibaldi fish look so ultra blue compared to their adult version.  They still love invasive sea urchins that have been decimating the kelp though...  Thinking it might be cool to do a naturalist dive in an aquarium...

mushroom bisque

In a strange turn of events, this recipe got short-stopped by MacGyver.  He ate a whole bowl before I was able to dump these into canning jars which sit in the fridge for a couple weeks before I decide it wasn't compelling enough to eat for lunch and feed to chickens.  

Mushroom bisque

2 potatoes peeled and chopped

1.5 cu water

1 onion chopped

1 celery stalk chopped

3 tbs garlic minced

2 tbs butter

salt to taste

1.5 lbs mushrooms (1.5 containers from Whole Foods rinsed)

1 cu cream

dollop of Mediterranean seasoning (because we didn't have straight thyme)

3 tbs sherry

2 tbs soy sauce

dollop of pepper 

Boil chopped potatoes in water for about 10 mins

In separate pot, saute chopped onion and celery with butter and salt for about 10 mins.

Add mushrooms and garlic to onion pot and cover to simmer for another 5 mins or so.  

Move potato broth to blender and blend until smooth

Blend the mushrooms, onions, celery garlic until smooth.  This is not feasible.  Add cream until feasible.

Mix the 2 purees together.  Add sherry, soy sauce, pepper, and Mediterranean seasoning. 

I guess you could garnish with grilled mushrooms and chives if you have any on hand...

Punkin Beer

Whelp.  Big Max the "yellow melon" that turned out to be an uber-sized pumpkin I planted, is pretty good to go.  Only 2 weeks late for Halloween.

MacGyver has been reading homebrew forums and concluded these gourds can work like the carboys he usually cures beer in before moving it to the keg.  You just dump your brew in (in this case approx 3 gallons), treat with yeast, cram an airlock on the thing, and let it ferment.

Rho is not so sure...

Greywater

The grey water laundry cistern saga continues.

At this point, we've given up on hoses because they clog with dryer lint too quickly.  We had been running an above ground pvc pipeline to the lemon tree, but Magyver's diagnosis was that it was getting over watered.  So now the line is rotated on its axis and watering a (somewhat stressed looking) ginger root.

We had a terracotta planter as a rudimentary form of drainage filter, but its one hole in the bottom seemed to get clogged up overly often.  Now we're trying using the two plastic buckets the blueberries from monrovia came from as a filter.  These have a couple drainage holes and when they're nested, you can offset the holes from each other and create a diy lint trap of sorts.  That said, the works is a bit large to fit in the varied topography of the bottom of the water softener cistern we're using.  Also of note, we added an electrical line so that we can fish the filter up if things get crazy and the cistern is still largely full of water.

Blueberries

We would have grabbed Sunshine Blue if they were available at the Armstong in Tustin we hit up, based on rave reviews as a southern high bush with low chill factor on gardenweb.  The healthiest looking pickings were Bountiful blues.

Stuck in planters that were on the north side of the house... moved them to the south side of the house to settle in because heavier foot traffic = more reminders to water.  Also, better sun.  Filled in with Azalea mix to maintain higher than normal acidity.  Probably also need to supplement water with apple cider vinegar, but haven't quite gotten that sophisticated yet.

Kilo

Granted, this has little to do with home restoration or Klee Kai, but...

very excited my 2001 Quintana Roo Kilo arrived at work!

Off of ebay, he cost $202 plus $100 shipping.  Even MacGyver was impressed with the value.  I think there must be good deals around this time of year because it is the end of the tri-season, not quite Christmas shopping season or New Year's resolution time for some exercise equipment splurges... plus how many people that fit on a 49 frame are looking for men's bikes?  Catering to 5'2" riders, these could get painted over in pink camo with a WSD sticker and marked up a couple hundred more.  Plus tri people tend to be so gear elitist, this type of bike may fall in their blindspot.  It isn't the latest and greatest, but it was cheaper even than what I paid for my generalist bike when it was new.  This year's Roos retail at $1800 for the all carbon version (ultralight, but ultra fragile).  $1300 for the all aluminum year before on clearance.

My 12 year old Roo is aluminum with a carbon fork and came with his own pedals and water bottle cage.  Same geometry and aerobars as its contemporaries, but more classic minimalist road bike feel and less goofy carbon hair's breadth clearance between the frame and back wheel and none of the fat seat posts and bars nonsense to better feature Quintana branding.  It is a perfect mix of the beausage of a broken-in bike (the labels painted on the cranks have gotten worn off by shoes) while also being way lighter than the commuter tank I plodded through my first tri with.

It will probably stay in the lime green trainer for a couple rounds until I get used to the new position, shifters, and pedals.  It seems like I should open it up for a test ride on a less technical road like Old PCH before trying anything local.  Now if only I weren't so preoccupied with how much it has been peed on over the last decade...  

Lantana

On facebook, a friend posted a "name that plant" picture of this diminutive little plant she said smells *amazing.*

Haha, when it gets to be hedge-sized and leans eastward into the sidewalk, making it difficult for pedestrians to pass, it's not quite as cute.  I guess it does have some redeeming qualities like the hummingbirds grooving on it, and its essence being a decent deterrent for cabbage aphids and possibly even for powdery mildew...

I filled up a green bin with just casual clippings.  It's probably another 3 or 4 bins worth to fully cut back the green wall.  Eventually, I'd like to look into getting our retaining walls to lean away from the sidewalk at a grade-- possibly with terraced planters.  The green hedge would be something edible like low-thorn varieties of berries and/or table grapes.

Something like a short version of this...

Plus

Structured behind a fence like

Gingers

We have this abandoned water softener drum which we were using to catch surge from our grey water laundry operation.  Initially, it was hooked to a hose spigot, but we found kinks in the hose were a recipe for fail and the hose itself tended to gum up with debris over time.  So we worked out a pvc pipe aqueduct which routed the water to our baby lemon tree.  Initially, the lemon tree jammed.  Flowers everywhere.  Fruit set like crazy.  Then the older leaves turned yellow and the younger leaves curled up like deformed claws.  Hmm.  I thought Citrus Leaf Miners, whose handiwork looks something like this.

Magyver's cross-the-yard diagnosis was over-watering.  So we reflected our pvc aqueduct on its axis to give the lemon's roots time to dry off.  Its leaves don't look like they're rallying yet, but the fruit has definitely moved from unripe green to bright yellow pretty quickly over the last 2 weeks.  This leaves us with a flood irrigated swath of land with nothing planted in it.

So I transplanted a ginger root that I bought in the grocery store, stuck in a pot (with a bean plant to remind me to water it), and was surprised to see had sprouted.  Ginger is MacGyver's euphemism for the QA department, based loosely off some stereotypes offered during a South Park episode.  The general joke is that their team has a tendency to grow like weeds and not have much to show for themselves (it's all underground!)  At any rate, that may fit the bill for this particular swampy area...    

In the process, I also dumped out the again-clogged grey water cistern, which Rho rolled in and is now pictured sporting very stinky cologne.  This is an iterative process.

Filo-doh!

Attempted mushroom strudel recipe as a potential pastry-type thing I could substitute for $7 breakfast omelettes or "liquid" breakfast at Starbucks.  This brings my Moosewood recipe count up to 55.  Unfortunately, my cursory glance at the ingredients list left some things lacking.

I didn't have any cottage cheese or cream cheese, so I substituted for Feta.
My filo dough had been "curing" in the freezer for quite a spell and was pretty intractable.
I didn't feel like wading out into the overrun part of the garden for chives to substitute for scallions.
I also wasn't too inclined to measure anything scrupulously or grease anything with olive oil.

At any rate, I have successfully used up all of the left over filo dough, bread crumbs, and feta cheese.  Result is a pretty flaky, decidedly lemony mushroom cheese pastry thing.  Will probably eat the remainder as a convenience breakfast, but am not convinced it is better than the sum of its parts.

Taking the Heat

Pasta is my go-to meal, particularly during the week, particularly after bulk purchasing 4 boxes of shells at the grocery store.  Yet I'm also trying to cook everything in the Moosewood Cookbook.  Current progress: 20%.  I tried whipping out two sauce recipes which are loosely inspired by the directions in the book to help progress on both fronts...

Caramelized onion sauce
-thinly sliced onions (1.5)
-olive oil (approx .25 cu)
-salt to taste
-spinach-frozen, semi steamed (approx. .25 cu)
-white wine vinegar (approx .25)
-feta cheese
-parmesan
-chopped nuts

Pregame the onions and olive oil to soften things up with salt. Add in spinach, vinegar and allow to boil off a bit as you add pasta to boiling water.  Around the time the pasta is ready to move to the colander, move the caramelized onions off the heat and top with cheese and nuts.  It tastes surprisingly sweet, almost like someone dropped invisible raisins in there somewhere.

Spinach Puree
-1/2 lb frozen spinach
-1 clove garlic minced
-water (approx 1/2 cu)

Steam spinach to unfreeze it.  Transfer to a blender with minced garlic.  Add enough water to smooth it out.  This smells pretty super duper pore-glow-inducing green.  Have yet to try it on pasta.

Oil change 101

Mini started a disconcerting death clack rattle last week.  I chalked this up as yet another reason why driving in general is not my cup o' tea.  Initial theories involved possibly bad gas.  However, MacG had the inspired idea to top off the oil with a partial bottle rolling around in the boot (during the weird wet the parking spot-thirsty mini who needed a new water pump saga).  We were a couple hundred miles over the 3K guideline.  Clacking solved.

I wanted to learn how to do this in order to achieve a bit more financial independence.  Price-wise, I'm not sure if you save beaucoup bucks on this endeavor.

5 quarts of 5w-30 synthetic oil (initially thought I only needed one per change)  -- $40 or $30 for semi-synthetic stuff MacG found in a gas station to supplement the 2 quarts I ordered
1/2 an oil filter (not attempted in this iteration) -- $8.40
[free] oil drain container which MacGyver already has
[free] funnel that is no longer food grade
[free] rag to check status
[free] car jack and stand
[free] hex tool used to loosen the bolt (actually, this cost $12 at home depot because we couldn't find the original)

= $34- $44  per change... plus you get pretty dusty, have to wait for the tank to cool off, will have to find a place to dispose of the oil, etc.

At which point, I get to wondering if an extra $10-$20 might be worth it to avoid the hassle... as long as they don't freak you out about other maintenance your car might need in the upsell.  That said, one facet of my car's vascular system is slightly less mystifying.

diy dye

Ever since turning my hair orange in my early 20's, I've been somewhat skeptical of grocery store dye jobs.  However, after looking to grow my hair out and keep some coverage of grey without quite as much over processing, I tried Red Mountain dye in red because henna seemed less hardcore.  Having an assistant is pretty clutch for project success.  Vaseline, darker colored towels, and a spacious slate wet room also helps with logistics.

Extreme Biking

Anxious to find a more extreme adventure than October's sprint triathlon, a friend and I decided it would be interesting to bike to La Jolla Cove in San Diego.

75 miles and takes roughly 7 hours by Google Maps directions in bike mode. 

Not to be ditched, MacGyver and his dad and brother volunteered to offer van support while surfing at various spots along the route.  

The trip itself was pretty grueling, but satisfying in a "wow, we're stronger than we thought!" sort of way.  Some highlights--  

• Using a handicapped elevator to cross the metrorail train tracks via subterranean tunnel
• Missing checkpoint 1 at Doheny because of a flooded path detour (Doheny is shaping up to be the bike-camp destination of choice if it is dog friendly)
• Swapping leads with an intense granny bike + camper in a pink windbreaker and a caution triangle
• Fevered attempts to figure out what "the boobs" power plant's real name was (San Onofre) and how far away it was... only to see it on the horizon.  Kids these days and their tech dependency!
• Incredulous use of The 5 freeway shoulder for 2 exits because Camp Pendelton had been closed for... a bike race!  Still going faster than the Northbound traffic. 
• Compliments on my "kevlar" gator tires from a perplexed cyclist on a Felt (who was equally concerned about the weight of my friend's beach cruiser with hot pink milk crate basket)  
• Sherpa'ed off The 5 by a cyclist hippie whose "license plate" said John he also warned us about the coast to coast bike race we were about to enter (and complimented my Brooks saddle).
• Becoming convinced all inhabitants in Oceanside are Barbie + Ken lookalikes based on the jogger foot traffic along the beach.
• Major fog rolling in as we moved through Encinitas looking for an "Indian" looking building... little did we know van support meant dot Indian not headdress Indian.  
• Almost wiping out while lane splitting through traffic at a stop light in Del Mar.
• Cool cross walks that stop traffic in all directions and let pedestrians traverse the center instead of waiting at 2 cross walks.  How enlightened?
• The mega hill in Torrey Pines.  We were passed by what appeared to be a 10 year old on a mountain bike.  I may not have dropped to my first ring during this trip, but in fairness, we did dismount and walk the last quarter mile of this... and it was probably faster than biking with our current gearing.
• Helping MacGyver out of his wetsuit at the end (who knows how long he had been stuck in it)
• The general accuracy of google maps in bike mode for ETA (beyond failure to anticipate 2 trail closures)
• Scoping out a fleet of top shelf bikes and spandex riders who passed us as part of their race.
• Scenic views everywhere-- sunrise, beaches, rolling hills with pretty rock formations, riding stables.
• Mostly awesome smells-- greasy spoon diners cooking bacon, fires in the coastal camp grounds, beachy ocean breezes.  
• Slightly less awesome smells-- exhaust on the 5, hard core horse manure by some of the larger riding stables, sea lions at La Jolla, myself most of the time I'm sure.
• Awesome smokey Monkey's Paw beer and mushroom pasta at Stone Brewery and gardens afterward to celebrate.

Do it again?  Yeah, maybe when I'm in better bike shape.  Might be more fun to try PR'ing on a zippy road or tt bike.  If I had van support, at a minimum pull off my racks to make the whole rig a little lighter weight.

GTD (getting things done)

Became a proponent of David Allen's Getting Things Done strategy in my early 20's.  At that point, I had a very involved spreadsheet and was summing up trends in my networth on a weekly basis.  While I'm not that meticulous anymore, I think it is pretty grounding to have a designated weekday to try to organize all of the chaos that has piled up over the week.  FlyLady had this "BO" acronym for people who are born organized.  I'm not sure I would go so far as to say I was born this way, but in general, people characterize me as having my act together.  

Here is my general checklist...

1.  Basket.  I dump a lot of physical things that are work in progress and have next actions associated into a wicker basket.  On Friday, I take everything out and make sure I have a to do list item to catalog each of them.  There's also a lot of things I can pay/file/throw away.  These are <2 minute tasks.
2.  Notes.  I keep a lot of random notes to self on my phone "note" app.  I empty any of these brain dumps that still seem relevant now that I've come down off the caffeine high which generated them.  Some go directly onto my to do list, others are longer term goals that go onto my bucket list.  Some are records of things I have spent money on and go into the spend diary I started a little over a month ago.  Some are things I want to buy and go onto one of my shopping lists.
3.  Buy.  2 shopping lists persist on my phone- grocery items and home depot items because you never know when we'll swing by.  Some miscellaneous or bigger ticket purchases end up getting dropped in there as they occur to me.  I also have a "buy" tab in my 101 things in 1001 days bucket list tracker on google docs and a wishlist on Amazon.  I scroll through these 3 collections.  I move the less errand-focused items on my notes list into my 101 in 1001 list.  I shop for discrete "near term" purchases on the bucket list and add to wishlist on Amazon.  I move things off my Amazon wishlist and into my cart if they are necessary for upcoming projects and my financial situation isn't too sideways.  The sweet thing is that by the time an item has cycled through 2 or more lists, 30+ days of reflection have elapsed where I can consider if I actually need/want the thing I'm about to splurge on.
4.  Bucket.  Back to the 101 in 1001 list in google docs.  I have a short list of active projects and a huge list of way more than 101 things that I think would be epic to do at some point.  First, I scroll through the short list (<20 projects) and increment any progress for the week.  I also may add more to do's if progress has stagnated.  If my short list looks particularly light and underwhelming, maybe I have accomplished some of the items, I will scroll through my big list and add new adventures.  My "notes" app on my phone is typically generating long term bucket list items faster than I can clear the old ones.  
5.  Email.  So there are the responses that take a little more focus than a quick "composed on my iPhone" missive.  I also am notorious for emailing mini research to myself (and acquaintances with similar first names) as a reminder of next steps for my to do list.  Things like 3 chairs at restoration hardware that I thought looked passable for dining room seating.  Or maybe the start of lobster season in order to plan our next Scuba dive series.  I go through these like I do my Basket and make sure they have associated to do's and that if anything is implemented, it doesn't have documentation dietrus left over in my inbox.
6.  Languishing To Dos.  So my to do list is sort of like the floor that I have swept a bunch of tabletop debris onto.  This is why I tackle it close to last.  I'll scroll through it and check off the projects I finished and didn't get around to noting.  I'll also subdivided the tasks that are becoming fixtures into smaller, more manageable steps.  This usually works well, but once in a while, my to do list balloons to over 50 things and I stop using it for a while to preserve my sanity.  I use a "To Do" app from iphone because it only makes me commit to what is happening today and tomorrow.  The rest is in nebulous categories of "upcoming" and "someday" that lets me get to these without feeling guilty I missed a deadline.  It also buzzes me every morning to remind me to check in with it.
7.  House Walk Through.  This one is still very much an R&D item on the GTD list.  I go through the house and make sure there aren't any to do's that are so obvious I didn't write them down.  This helps feed content for the blog a day challenge.
8.  Menus.  Brand new item on the GTD check list.  I try to come up with a couple recipes I would like to try any given week.  This gives me stuff to add to the grocery list and increments my progress on bucket list items like cooking every recipe in The Moosewood Cookbook or constructing RL recipes for WoW in game item equivalents.  That said, after printing out my work calendar for next week, it seems there is going to be hardly any time for gastronomic hedonism...