Category: To Occupy my Time

Copy editor needed. STAT!

Hey Oregonian.  Maybe you could put some money towards better proofreading?

24/7 is something entirely different than the improper fraction of 24/7, which I can’t recreate in this blog, but which is in the text above.  24/7 means “all the time” namely 24 hours a day, 7 days per week.  24/7 means 3 and 3/7 of something.

(And yes, this blog could use a copy editor too.  But this blog is not a major news organization.)

Bigger stand-alone Opinion page. And yet.

The separate Opinion section in the Sunday Oregonian disappeared some time ago.  It morphed into part of the Metro page.  With the brave new world of lesser service masquerading as still the same level of newspaper, one of the things the Oregonian is counting in the “improvement!” column is the return of a separate Opinion section.  I was pretty happy too.  Although now that I read it, I have this problem.

There are more editorials, but nearly all of them continue on a different page.  This is massively annoying.  I expect it in the normal paper, it was always par for the course.  However, it used to be that the Opinion page had each Opinion piece on one page.  I read the paper one page at a time.  It’s the reality of where I read the paper (on the train and while eating my lunch at work) and even more than the regular news, I resent having to retain in my head where the argument was going until I get to the back page of the paper.

Surely you can work your magic and get all the words on the same page.

If you are going to have the children and not take care of them…

At least give them halfway decent names.

I was all-in (theoretically) to adopt these kids.  But really, why put the word “sin” in your child’s name, when the proper spelling, Jackson, is just fine.  And Mackenzie isn’t too terribly horrible, but I’m not the biggest fan.  As for Daycian, sorry buddy, that you get to go through life with a name no one can pronounce.

Other than the name thing, they sound like a fun bundle.  Perhaps someone with more tolerance than me would like them?

Kale Salad a la Casey.

This summer I had a great Kale Salad made by bride Casey for her wedding.  It was massaged kale and had quoina in it and was very, very good.

Upon receiving a bumper crop of kale from my colleague John, I put together this Kale salad inspired by her creation.

Here’s the recipe:

Bring 1.75 c. water to boil and add 1 c. quoina.  Turn heat to low and cook until done, approximately 20 minutes.

Clean and remove the stems from a whole lot of kale.  2-3 bunches from the store, or a huge bowl’s worth from your garden.

Put the cleaned and stemmed kale in a bowl and add 1 t salt.  Set a timer for five minutes and squeeze the kale in your hands.  Nothing will happen at first, but by the end of the five minutes, the kale will have nicely broken down.  Squeeze as much liquid as you can out of the kale and transfer your kale to a cutting board.

Clean out the bowl, discarding the salty kale juice, then finely chop the kale and return to the bowl.

Grate two carrots on top of the kale.

Cook 2-3 (or possibly 4?) rashers bacon, drain and cool.  The chop into small pieces and add to the bowl.

Put those on top of the kale and carrots.

When the quoina is done, add it to the bowl.

Mix up a curry vinaigrette.  In a separate bowl add 1/4 c. oil, 1/4 c white vinegar, 1 clove garlic, minced, 1 T packed light brown sugar, 1 T minced fresh chives, 1/2 t. curry powder and 1/2 t soy sauce. Mix until combined.

Pour over the salad in the bowl and toss everything to combine.  Good cold, also probably good warm.

Reading.


Tonight was my reading.  I meant to take a picture at the bar with my story leaning up against my cocktail and the dark atmosphere really setting the stage.  But I forgot.  I was nervous and then I was busy listening to the others (I went second) and then I was talking with my friends that came out and then I was talking with the other people in my class and before you knew it, I was home and instead of a dark, atmospheric photo, you got a picture of my Sunday paper and my reading.  But you already read it earlier in the week.

Things to note about this experience:  I loved it.  It was very fun to get up in front of people and read something I wrote.  I practiced a lot and thought throughout my many practice sessions, “there is absolutely nothing I can cut from this.”  Then when reading I left out entire sentences, thinking, “yep, that doesn’t actually need to be said.”  It was very interesting to observe that going down.  The lights meant I couldn’t see anyone while I read.  That was unfortunate, as I would have loved to see some expressions.  But I could hear a bit of laughter in parts, so that was cool.

Vintage Cakes. Texas Sheet Cake


Quite delicious and easy to make.
I encountered two difficulties.  One was that I had a 9 X 13 pan, but not a 10 X 15 pan.  My mom did, and I was all set to borrow it, but then left it at her house, and thus, ended up using the 9 X 13.  That didn’t seem to make a ton of difference.

My second problem was that the directions didn’t explicitly say to leave the cake in the pan and so I tried to remove it.  That was a bad idea and ended with me dropping the cake, causing part of it to shift, as you can see in the picture.  I wrote myself a note to leave the cake in the pan for next time.  You make the cake, make the frosting, pull the cake out of the oven, pour on the frosting and then let the whole thing cool.

Overall, very good cake and I’m excited to try the variation with cinnamon and coffee.

Shrug planning.

I have purchased a fleece blanket from Goodwill, which will be my “muslin.”  Take that, expensive muslin.  I spent $4.00, not $20.00.
 
I used this link (warning: shrug pictured is not the shrug in the pattern) and mapped out my pattern.
 
Cutting.
 
Hmm.  Needs to be longer in the arm and more material in the back.
 
I will add some inches.
 

New Camera!!!!!

With the sadness of the death of the old camera, comes the happiness of the new.  This one is another Canon.  It’s a PowerShot SX170IS.  I’m not in love like I was with my previous camera.  But I think we will like each other very much.

Let’s play!  Here is Antares, looking grumpy that I have taken his picture.
 

And again.
 
And here is how far away from Antares I was standing when I took those two pictures.  Excellent zoom!
 
Sentinel!  With flash.
 
Let’s test the fish-eye feature.
Normal.
 
Moderate.
 
Extreme.
 
Extreme fish-eye and Antares.
 
Back to normal.
 
Here’s a new feature I didn’t have before.  Timer, than three shots.  Here are three of Antares.
 
 
 
And three of Sentinel (with flash).
 
 
 
Three more of Sentinel (without flash).
 
 
 
Here is an early morning shot of Paul Bunyan peeking through the trees.

As soon as I read that owners manual (which I have to download as a PDF, it didn’t come with the camera) we will discover all sorts of interesting things, I’m sure.

Welcome Canon PowerShot SX170IS!