January 30th, 2008 nick
It’s thirteen months since I’ve been off Nalgene bottles, twelve and a half months since I’ve been up on Sigg bottles and three days since I’ve been converted to Klean Kanteens.
Nalgenes are supposedly bad because they can leak bisphenol-A. So last year for christmas mom and I both got shiny fire-engine red aluminum Sigg bottles. Late this fall, I started noticing little knobby white deposits inside the bottles. On one of our semiannual walks in northern Maryland, John said that he fed his Sigg one cleaning tablet every month or so. After christmas this year, I first attempted to dissolve the little suckers off (the Sigg website postulated that maybe they were sugar deposits) by submerging the bottle in boiling water for close to half an hour. That didn’t work. So I bought some of these cleaning tablets off of eBay but one treatment with them didn’t work either. According to mySigg.com, my Sigg bottle is “extruded from a single piece of aluminum and coated with a patented secret formula liner”. Secret?
On our visit up to REI this weekend, I returned one of my two bottles that has this growth (could it be something in our water? something to do with the powdered energy drinks we use? or maybe their secret liner?) and exchanged for a 40oz sleek stainless steel Klean Kanteen. I like the simple but elegant design and there’s no weird coatings on the inside of the bottle. But we’ll see if it can last me for more than a year.
Posted in miscellany | 2 Comments »
January 28th, 2008 nick
We were rudely awakened on Saturday morning by a bird chirping loudly outside our bedroom window. As it happened, we ended up being happy to hang out with Mr. American Kestrel (that’s what we pegged him as, after a little Peterson’s guide consultation) for close to half an hour as he perched atop the telephone pole right outside our bedroom, surveyed the neighborhood morning activity and even munched a small bird for breakfast. It was fun to watch, and we managed to catch a few pictures. I include a few below but I also posted a few more on the 6thandcollege gallery.
In the one below, you can see a lot of the varied colorations (top of head, speckles, auburn back, slate wings, etc…). We do prefer sausage and eggs for breakfast, but we’ll forgive him.
This reminded me about how in Rogue, my first computer game which I played fervently and frequently in the late-80s, one of the enemies was a Kestrel and was represented by a big K in the text-based graphics of the game (on the black screen with only the yellow-golden text). They were always hard to defeat. Especially without a mace.
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January 23rd, 2008 nick
I’ve been trying for a few weeks now to attach the three little pigs coat rack that was displaced by the kitchen demolition to a wall that is brick covered by a thin layer of plaster. TapCons (blue screws with sharp ends and nasty two-level grooves) didn’t work (that’s 1). A masonry bit would slice through the plaster but wouldn’t bite on the brick (2). Regular nails would rather bend than go into the brick (3).
So today, I took off from the first day of classes at 4 and finally got my ass to Falkenhans’ where Deb recommended masonry nails. I scooped a handful for 45 cents, scampered home, predrilled the hole in the rack and started pounding these suckers in. One stroke got it through the plaster and it took a few good knocks to crack it into the brick, but once it broke through it sunk easily and the rack snugged up tight to the wall.
Final score: Bricks 3, Nick 1. But it was the one that counted.
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January 16th, 2008 nick
A Study in Black and White
Spiraling down between
abyss of light and
light-washed walls,
hung with paintings
bright and bold,
in gentle contemplation
slowly pace
two errant nuns.
Their undulating veils
unfold
an innocent design,
masterpiece
in the Guggenheim.
Elizabeth Gulick (1923-2007)
[I love the little couplet at the end...]
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January 16th, 2008 nick
Brad and Elizabeth laid claim to a few handfuls of worms the other night, making it three worm populations that have come from our initial order from wormswrangler.com. This weekend, when we go back up for grandma’s memorial service, we’re hoping to attach a spout to Mom and Dad’s container so there’s not as much lifting involved when you want to get the juice out. If it works, we’ll try to attach one to ours as well.
In other house news, we’re still trying to figure out how to attach the coat rack to the plaster/brick wall in the house (it used to be attached to drywall, where the window now is). Hopefully Falkenhan’s will have the solution. Strong nails? A more powerful drill?
Also, the coriander and dill seeds that I planted a while back have come up but are looking a little leggy sitting on the cold kitchen windowsill. I may try to re-pot them, covering them up to their leaves. But that may only work well for tomatoes or other things that can grow roots off of their stems. They’re sitting in pure worm manure, so if I get them set up right, they should take off. That said, I harvested some cilantro from OUTSIDE last night for our tortillas/beans/rice meal — it’s been quietly surviving since I planted a set in an outside pot late in the fall. I guess there’s just enough warm days to keep it going, and nowhere near enough cold ones. Let’s hear it for the lame mid-Atlantic winters.
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January 12th, 2008 nick
After spending the early morning mudding our new kitchen window frame, I went out for a scrumptious brunch at Miss Shirley’s with Jessie and Patrick. A little andouille sausage, blackened shrimp, tomato and cheddar omelete hit the spot. Then I had my ear talked off by a salesman at Soundscape, a local audio-visual store, where I went to start investigating a possible smaller audio setup for our living room. After picking up The Straight Story (supposedly a non-freaky, somewhat feel-goody David Lynch film), we all walked back to Hampden, strolling through Roland Park in the surprisingly warm sunshine.
But the excitement of the day came when I went down to Sisson Street dump to drop off the building materials from the wall demolition last week. Stopped in at Mill Valley Farmer’s Market and Garden Center which is right next door to the dump (since I had forgotten to go to the market this morning). As I was pulling out of the lot, local milk and cheese in hand, a feline-like creature darted across the exit driveway to the dump. All I saw was that it was bigger than a cat, moved quickly, had a tawny color and what I interpreted to be a black stripe on its tail topped off with white. Judging from the Fox Forest description, I had my first Baltimore red fox sighting. Apparently I’m not the only one seeing these critters around town.
Posted in books & movies, miscellany | No Comments »
January 10th, 2008 nick
It’s a good time to be a sports fan in New England. According to the Boston Globe: “Since Game 4 of the ALCS, the Red Sox, Patriots, and Celtics are a combined 46-3.”
That slick winning percentage would be dragged down by the five top Boston ultimate teams this fall who went a combined 26-12 in the same time-frame, which still isn’t shabby. The men’s division Boston Ultimate had the worst finish with a respectable tie for 5th place at Nationals. See complete records and placement below the fold.
Read the rest of this entry »
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January 10th, 2008 nick
who helped us put take down and put up our kitchen wall this weekend. Really, we couldn’t have done it without him. There’s still a lot of finish-work to be done (mudding, sanding, painting, putting trim back on) that will take a while — but the place already looks a lot more open.
| before |
after |
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Check out more pictures from this adventure in home-fixing that kept us busy all weekend. I made the requisite run to Falkenhans today to pick up the tools needed for the next steps, so hopefully we’ll be on our way this weekend.
Also, Mike and Jamie finished assembling their worm bin yesterday. Not a moment too soon, as when we went down to scoop out worms for them the little wrigglers were crawling all over the tub, more than I’d ever seen before. Hungry, I’d expect, seeing as we’ve given them huge amounts of food in the last few months (close to 15 pounds after thanksgiving) that they’ve chowed through. In the process I’d estimate that the population has doubled. So we carted a healthy starter population of worms next door to M&J’s, the second spawn of our starter population. Apparently the Leverett brood of squigglers isn’t doing so well. We may cart some more up there when we drive up in a few weeks.
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January 5th, 2008 nick
This is the recipe that my mom and sister use — we made them for the first time over New Years with Kip and Aaron. As Johanna says: “filo dough gets a bad rap.” While it takes a little time to put them together, working with the dough wasn’t that hard (no splits!) and you can do huge batches and freeze them for that cold winter night when you just don’t have the energy to cook. Yesterday I brought some over to Jon and Aileen whose brand new baby, Oliver, is the smallest cutest little peanut you ever saw.
filling recipe
(this recipe is just about right for one package of filo dough)
20 oz frozen chopped spinach
1 c finely chopped yellow onion
6 T olive oil
oregano and basil to taste (alternatively, some people use dill and nutmeg)
salt and pepper to taste
2/3 c ricotta cheese
1/2 c feta cheese
defrost frozen spinach. drain, squeeze out moisture. sautee onion in olive oil until golden. add spinach and cook over low heat until mixture is dry. season with salt and pepper and herbs of choice (more oregano than basil). when cool, stir in ricotta and crumbled feta.
dough and assembly
uncover dough, put first sheet of dough on flat surface, brush well with melted butter. stack second sheet on top, butter again. (keep an eye on the stack of filo dough to the side — it dries out quickly. need a system where you put a piece of saran wrap over it to keep it covered and moist. we used a layer of saran wrap beneath a wet dishcloth.)
cut filo sheets into 4th, 5ths or 6ths so that the length of a single strip is the smaller of the two dimensions of the original filo sheet. [nb: we actually cut them the other way (lengthwise?) so that the strips were longer. not sure if it makes a difference, although they're probably more dough-y (and flaky?) if you do it that way.]
at the top of each strip, put a tsp of filling about an inch from the top. take the top corner and fold it diagonally across. keep folding down until you have a little triangular package. [this part reminded me of folding notes in junior high.]
butter baking sheet, place them on sheet. butter the top of the pieces.
bake at 350 degree oven for <25 minutes or until triangles are well browned or until filling is hot!
Posted in food, recipes | 2 Comments »
January 5th, 2008 nick
made it out to 34th street for the infamous Hampden ball drop with Fred, Eve, Nathan, Aaron and Kip. It was quite the scene, hon. Perched atop a lamppost there was a ball with lights falling towards a little crate with “2-0-0-8″ stenciled out by hand. The ball dropped and at the stroke of midnight a Baby New Year, in the form of a large man, complete with mutton chops, moustache, a little baby bonnet (think Baby Herman?) and a diaper, waddles out of his house and starts to shake hands and have pictures taken with the locals. To be clear, he was only wearing a diaper and white socks and white sneakers.
Then, a few young women dressed up in beards and colorful (but odd) costumes (one had a two-headed goat headdress, with antlers) paraded through the crowd, pushing a shopping cart with a drum in it, pounding out a good infectious rhythm. Before long, there was a little primal dance circle, right in front of the house with the Disney-character-populated manger scene.
Anyway, that was the New Year’s eve scene in our ‘hood.
Since then, with Paul’s help, we’ve started to go after the kitchen wall. The goal: more light in the living room and a place where people can sit out of the way but still be involved in the kitchen activities. So, a window between the two rooms is on the docket, with a little bar that will divide the space. We did most of the demolition last night and whaddya know but the frame of the window that we wanted was already in place behind the drywall! Still some work to do with a bit of rewiring (thanks, Paul!) and putting new drywall up. Hopefully the mess will be at least contained by the end of the weekend so we can unwrap the cupboards (currently covered in plastic sheeting) and start to use the kitchen again. Photos to come soon.
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