The Big Green Reflection

What makes a good programmer?

2008-01-11T14:16:00.000-08:00

I came across this blog post by way of Slashdot and like it. Very accurate.

How to recognise a good programmer

What to do with beet greens?

2007-11-07T20:49:00.001-08:00

This! It's delicious. Not sure where Erin found it, perhaps Good Eats? It would also work with most any hardy green thing, like kale, swiss chard, mustard greens, etc. We just had some beet greens lying around.

1 pound beet greens
1 strip of thick cut bacon, chopped
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 large garlic clove, minced
3/4 cup of water
1 Tbsp granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/6 cup of cider vinegar

Wash the greens in a sink filled with cold water. Drain greens and wash a second time. Drain greens and remove any heavy stems. Tear leaves into bite-sized pieces. Set aside.

In a 3 qt saucepan, cook bacon until lightly browned. Add onions, cook over medium heat 5 to 7 minutes, stirring occassionally, until onions soften and start to brown. Stir in garlic. Add water to the hot pan, stirring to loosen any particles from bottom of pan. Stir in sugar and red pepper. Continue cooking until mixture boils. Add greens, reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes (up to 30 minutes for kale or collard greens). Stir in vinegar. (For kale or collard greens continue cooking additional 20 to 25 minutes or until desired tenderness.)

Serves 4.

Recipe: Braised kale with cherry tomatoes

2007-09-16T21:05:00.000-07:00

SERVES 4
Ingredients
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 pound kale, tough stems removed and leaves coarsely chopped
1/2 cup vegetable stock or broth
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions
In a large frying pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and saute until lightly golden, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in the kale and vegetable stock. Cover, reduce the heat to medium-low, and cook until the kale is wilted and some of the liquid has evaporated, about 5 minutes.

Stir in the tomatoes and cook uncovered until the kale is tender, 5 to 7 minutes longer. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon juice, salt and pepper. Serve immediately.

Roasted Beets with Dill-Walnut Vinaigrette

2007-09-12T20:52:00.000-07:00

We've made this several times now and really really like it. It comes from Pioneer Organics.

Roasted beets with dill-walnut vinaigrette

Serves 2-3. Prep time: 1 hour.

4 medium beets
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons juice from 1 lemon
1 medium shallot, minced or salad onion
1 tablespoon minced fresh dill
2 tablespoons olive oil
sea salt and ground black pepper
some blue cheese (see tweaks)

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Wash your beets, trim the stems, wrap the beets individually in aluminum foil and place in a shallow roasting pan. Roast until a skewer inserted into a beet comes out easily, 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Whisk the walnuts, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, shallot, dill and olive oil together in a bowl large enough to hold the beets. Remove the beets from the oven, open the foil and allow to cool. Peel off the skins and slice into quarter-inch thick slices. Place in the bowl with the dressing. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Tweaks: we like to add crumbled blue cheese into this. It is REALLY fantastic.

Oven ribs

2007-09-05T20:53:00.000-07:00

RIBS:
6 tablespoons mustard (yellow)
2 tablespoons ketchup
3 medium cloves garlic , minced or pressed through garlic press (about 1 tablespoon)
2 teaspoons ground black pepper
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
1 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
3 tablespoons brown sugar

2 racks St. Louis-style spareribs , 2 1/2 to 3 pounds each, trimmed of surface fat, membrane removed (see illustrations below), each rack cut in half
1/4 cup Lapsang Souchong tea leaves (finely ground)—from about 10 tea bags, or 1/2 cup loose tea leaves ground to a powder in a spice grinder)
1/2 cup apple juice

Pomegranate Syrup or Molasses:
4 cups pomegranate juice
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

Instructions

1. For the Rub: Combine mustard, ketchup, and garlic in small bowl; combine pepper, paprika, chili powder, cayenne, salt, and sugar in separate small bowl. Spread mustard mixture in thin, even layer over both sides of ribs; coat both sides with spice mixture, then wrap ribs in plastic and refrigerate for at least 8 hours and up to 24 hours.

2. Transfer ribs from refrigerator to freezer for 45 minutes. Adjust one oven rack to lowest position and second rack to upper-middle position (at least 5 inches below broiler). Place baking stone on lower rack; heat oven to 500 degrees. Sprinkle ground tea evenly over bottom of rimmed baking sheet; set wire rack on sheet. Place ribs meat side up on rack and cover with heavy-duty foil, crimping edges tightly to seal. Roast ribs directly on stone for 30 minutes, then reduce oven temperature to 250 degrees, leaving oven door open for 1 minute to cool. While oven is open, carefully open one corner of foil and pour apple juice into bottom of baking sheet; reseal foil. Continue to roast until meat is very tender and begins to pull away from bones, about 1 1/2 hours. (Begin to check ribs after 1 hour; leave loosely covered with foil for remaining cooking time.)

3. Remove foil and carefully flip racks bone side up; place baking sheet on upper-middle oven rack. Turn on broiler; cook ribs until well browned and crispy in spots, 5 to 10 minutes. Flip ribs meat side up and cook until well browned and crispy, 5 to 7 minutes more. Cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting into individual ribs. Serve with barbecue sauce, if desired.

-- From America's Test Kitchen

Bentley quote of the day

2006-06-19T13:40:00.000-07:00

Erin asked me this today via IM:

Bentley is on the monitor. I guess it's warm back there. Can he get cancer from that or something?

I find this very amusing for some reason. I think it's the mental image of a content cat sitting on a monitor possibly absorbing deadly amounts of radiation.

This is Bentley

2005-11-27T11:54:00.000-08:00

We got a cat. His name is Bentley. I like him.

Erin found him online at a shelter and so we went to look at him. He's a Cornish Rex, which means he has short, curly/wavy hair, and some people with cat allergies are less allergic. We were foster parents for a week since he had a cold there in the shelter; my allergies were mostly OK, and we liked him, so we kept him. I think that was about 3 weeks ago.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the academy

2005-11-02T12:46:00.000-08:00

It's just such an honor winning an Emmy. They are surprisingly sturdy things, as you can see; not even the claw hand can dent one.

Scuba diving adventure no. 1

2005-10-05T20:21:00.000-07:00

I went on my first scuba diving adventure post-certification last weekend. We went to the underwater dive "park" in Edmonds, WA. See more info here and at the official site here.

We did 2 dives. First one was at 12:00, next was 2:00. Each lasted about 55 minutes underwater -- since the max depth we hit was 35 feet, our limiting factor was our air supply. The water was a balmy 56 degrees, which is what it was back in July. After the initial 1-2 minutes of face pain, it was honestly a pleasant temperature. Showering at the outdoor shower (which was awesome to have) was the worst part, as the air temperature was only 60 degrees.

We saw lots of sunken things -- boats, coils of rope, metal towers, tanks, a torpedo.. We saw a fair amount of wildlife, although not as much as I had expected. Starfish, Sunflower stars, giant lingcod, and anemone-like-things were abundant. We swam right next to a seal for a portion of our surface swim, which was killer. I think the advice to get split fins instead of traditional fins is advice I should have heeded.

The diving was great fun! I can't wait to do it again.

Xbox Live wins an Emmy!

2005-10-03T22:26:00.000-07:00

Wait, what? Xbox Live won an Emmy? I know it doesn't make much sense, but we did. Really. Technically, Xbox Live won for Outstanding Achievement in Video Gaming Technology And Applications, Development of Multiplayer Console Technology, which is a rather specific category, if you ask me.

My favorite picture is this group shot, but you can find the whole photo album on Lit's blog.

Backyard Blackberry Porter

2005-09-07T11:25:00.000-07:00

I think this blog should include details of our homebrewed beer adventures. Seems like a good place to store notes and recipes for ourselves, and the very occasional wanderer who stumbles in and cares. This idea just occurred to me, so I don't have any details at the moment. Here's the summary.

We've made 2 beers now and are currently making our 3rd.

#1 - Irish red ale from a pre-hopped kit. Decent, but not great. Strong malt flavor, and weak alcohol level (3% or so - I think the fermentation got stuck).

#2 - Wrong Cup IPA. We used an IPA recipe from the local homebrew store. It was already a hoppy recipe, but we screwed up and added 1.5 oz of bittering hopes instead of 0.5 oz. It has a lovely aroma, but face-puckering bitterness. It's awesome mixed half & half with something malty, like our first beer. :)

#3 - Backyard Blackberry Porter. We used the Robust Porter recipe from the beer store but included 4 lbs of fresh blackberries from our backyard. These were briefly steamed then added to the secondary fermentor. The taste of the beer, before the secondary, was lovely - rich, dark, with that porter-like bite. After adding the blackberries, the taste mellowed out some and had a rounded sweetness to it. I think this will be fantastic. It still needs a week or two in the secondary, then a few weeks in the bottle.. homebrewing is for the patient..

Oh yah - while making the porter, we had a massive boilover. About a gallon of the wort went all over our stove, countertop, dishwasher, cabinets, and floor. Keep in mind this was porter, so it was dark & stain-prone like coffee. Not to mention boiling hot and sticky with sugar. Uggghhh, what a mess.

My gas mileage is better than your gas mileage

2005-09-07T11:18:00.000-07:00

Erin and I (well, mostly me) have been eyeing scooters for a few years now, ever since the RV trip. I found a great deal on a perfect scooter for us recently and bought it! Ignoring the 3 years of thinking about it, it was very spur-of-the-moment. It's a 2001 Kymco People 50 much like the one here, but in a dark green color. We went for the 50cc model for simplicity. We've owned it for 6 days now and I've already put over 80 miles on it. I'm still on my first tank of gas. The tank holds 1.5 gallons. This thing is so much fun! I should have bought one earlier, like at the *beginning* of summer.

Your random stuff of the day

2005-07-15T00:02:00.000-07:00

OK. 3 things. All random. But all cool.

1. Check out http://fonts.tom7.com. This guy rocks! Great fonts, good design skills, and all free!

2. Check out http://www.busmonster.com. Someone combined several great sources of data into a highly cool Seattle bus website. It integrates real-time bus locating, bus stop, and bus routes with Google maps and real-time traffic information.

3. Puget Sound Energy (http://www.pse.com) is a really great company. Their bills break down your energy usage and compare it with previous months. They also have a handy website where you can view your energy usage with daily granularity going back many months or years. They also offer customers the option to buy green power (hydroelectric, wind, etc) for a very small premium. I just signed on for 400KW of "green" electricity for only $8 extra per month. That's small enough to absolutely make it worthwhile.

SCUBA diving

2005-07-14T23:52:00.000-07:00

I'm taking SCUBA lessons. I've had 2 classes already, there are 2 more next week, then I have 2 days over the weekend to go do open-water dives. So far, besides all the homework stuff, it's really awesome! We've had to do the non-fun training stuff, like flooding our mask and purging it, but today we got to go 12' down and swim around a bit (in a pool). It was great! What a bizarre feeling, to just be breathing while sitting on the bottom of a pool. It's suprisingly easy. You should all try it!

Erin and I bought a condo!

2005-05-13T21:25:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, Erin and I found out we had to move. We looked at renting, then we started thinking about purchasing. Well, a few ulcer-inducing, nerve-wracking weeks later, we bought a condo! It's really quite nice, about 1500 square feet with a garage and lovely landscaping. We're in a really convenient location and look forward to not having to move again for several years.

I'm sure you all want to see pictures of it. Well, here you go. Keep in mind the outside is due to be painted this summer.

What do liberals believe?

2005-05-10T10:32:00.000-07:00

I encountered this from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/, which seems to be a blog by Eric Alterman. I don't really know much about the context, I just cliked on a link from the main page. Anyway, I found this reader's definition of "liberal" very interesting. It is a clear, concise, intelligent definition. Here it is:

Name: Mark Paul
Hometown: Chicago

Here's a try at defining liberalism, though the term is best understood in relation to its mirror opposite. The Latin roots help a lot. Conservatives are primarily concerned with conserving wealth, power, and privilege. Since most of them already possess these, they know how good it is to be wealthy, powerful, and privileged -- a $50K tax cut is not at all abstract -- and will fight like hell to remain so. As someone (Barbara Ehrenreich?) once said, it may be tiresome to clean your own bathroom, but the chore is positively humiliating if you once hired someone to do it for you. Conservatives, Buckley said, stand athwart history and say Stop! (I would add, easy to say when you're standing on the spot that says pass go and collect $500.) Their conundrum is that even Buckley cannot stop time. They must choose what to conserve and they choose best when they favor civility, rule of law, responsibility, and classical aesthetic values.

Liberals are interested in expanding liberty. The term originally developed in British politics, as England evolved into a constitutional monarchy. Liberals wanted to expand the franchise and conservatives resisted. In the U.S. the terms were most useful during the civil rights movement in the '50s and '60s. Everyone who believed African-Americans should have the right to vote was a liberal. Everyone who didn't was a conservative. Adam Smith, too, was a liberal, because he wanted to expand economic liberty beyond royal concessions, and liberals remain market-oriented. The conundrum for liberals is that expanding liberty for those who do not have it inevitably pinches those who do, even if all it does is dilute their vote as it has in the Deep South since the Voting Rights Act passed into law.

Liberals believe you should be able to do with your property as you please, unless you impinge on others. Conservatives, such as would-be appellate judge Janice Brown, believe zoning is theft. Liberals want to be confident when they buy a suburban house that their upwind neighbor can't turn the backyard into a hog farm.

Liberals believe labor should have the right to organize into unions, just as capital
organizes into corporations.

Liberals believe liberty expands when people have reasonable expectations of each other through fraud and liability statutes; conservatives prefer caveat emptor.

Liberals also understand that economic development sometimes destroys markets, leading to oligopolies and monopolies, and these must be regulated or commerce becomes extortion. Liberals don't resent Bill Gates for becoming wealthy by building a successful business, but they don't want him to have sole control of the software business, either.

Liberals have also reluctantly concluded from the evidence that modern medicine has outstripped the privately financed, fee-for-service system, which now makes no more sense than private ownership of New York City streets.

Liberals understand that modern economies can have disastrous effects unforeseeable by even the most prudent. Poverty is poor soil for liberty, so they favor unemployment compensation and other temporary relief measures for those with the capacity to adjust, and a Social Security system for the disabled, dependents, and the elderly, who cannot.

Liberals believe government should be constrained from interfering in private life. How we worship, what we read and watch, our reproduction choices, and how and to whom we make love (minors and coercion excluded) are private matters. The government need only acknowledge marriage as a boilerplate contract giving both parties certain rights and obligations. Whether they are the same race or same sex is none of government's business.

Liberals believe the public sphere should be governed by empiricism, which requires an intellectual discipline best developed through education and the free expression of ideas. Good public schools expand liberty for everyone, regardless of their parents' educational achievement.
Sorry, but liberal and conservative don't seem to be useful terms in foreign policy. Journalists like to use the terms, but that only muddies the waters, which are already fairly murky. Isolationist vs. internationalist and unilateralist vs. multilateralist seem more relevant. Right now of course, it's the fantasists vs. the empiricists. And Bateman is king empiricist in my book.

Call it what you want, but how can anyone not believe in this view?

Homebrewin'

2005-01-05T17:55:00.000-08:00

Erin and I are making beer! It's exciting. I brewed it last Monday, about 36 hours ago. The fermentation really started taking off last night, we have lots of foamy bits floating on top and at least 1 airlock burble a second. We've got about 2 more weeks until bottling time, then 2 MORE weeks until drinking time. This is a hobby for the patient.

Speaking of patience -- ever tried to boil 3 gallons of water on a normal electric stove? It takes just shy of forever. We had to do it twice when preparing the beer, once for the extra water to clean it, and again for the wort. I really want a big 'ol fire-spewing gas monster stove.

Fried Twinkies

2004-11-07T22:08:00.000-08:00

Ever have a fried Twinkie? Ever HEARD of a fried Twinkie? The background for this story is pretty simple. Erin and I arrived in Las Vegas in our RV. We did the whole strip thing and were very disappointed in the entertainment/price ratio. We then discovered a whole new world in downtown Vegas. It was fun! And cheap! And the drinks actually had alcohol in them! The result -- we got a bit trashed and thought fried Twinkies from Mermaids sounded good. Look how happy Erin is!

Egyptian Legos!

2004-10-20T23:41:00.000-07:00

I don't really know what to comment on in this picture. I believe we were at the FAO Schwartz in Caesar's Forum Shops in Las Vegas. That's Erin looking particularly cute.

Arm wrestling for androids

2004-10-13T22:16:00.000-07:00

I lost this arm wrestling match. It was close, but my arms of steel just couldn't match his actual arms of steel. We found him in an old coin-op museum somewhere near Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. The place was full of these old turn-of-the-century coin-op entertainment contraptions. I wish I remembered the name, I'd definitely recommend visiting if you're in the area.

I can't resist this one

2004-10-13T00:05:00.000-07:00

Somewhere in the eastern half of the United States during our RV trip, we passed this construction vehicle. It has several crudely humurous things working for it.

The Big Green Reflection

2004-10-12T23:32:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago Erin started a blog (see http://biggreenball.com/red/). That is not why I'm making a blog now. So why am I? What do I have to share with the world?

Actually, there's two reasons. Only one has to do with you. I recently sorted some pictures pulled off my digital camera in the past couple of months and realized I have quite a collection of interesting pictures, mostly taken during the great RV trip. Many of them are random encounters and miscellaneous things that either don't belong in any of my existing galleries or require a substantial post about them.

I also recently read through the travel logs from our RV trip and greatly enjoyed it. I want to have a record of my thoughts and musings for later posterity. I wish I had made even more travel log entries, I would have enjoyed reading today ones that seemed boring 6 months ago.