SEPTEMBER 2015
Wednesday 2015.09.30
Toy Joy
First, the back story: Eight years ago when I built my current computers there were two motherboards I wanted. I always build in pairs, so I needed two. However, they were not available. I bought a slightly lesser one, only one, to see how well I liked it. If good enough, I would have bought a second one. Then the two that I initially wanted became available; so I bought those.
What do I do with a third motherboard? The answer seems obvious enough. About a year later I built a third computer, using parts from the two older computers I replaced. I only needed to buy memory and another microprocessor. The third computer was only a test rig. I'd use it to load and test software before putting it on the other computers, if I wanted it. Then one of the new computers lost its motherboard. A fan that was said to be optional in the user's manual turned out to be very important. So the test rig was disassembled and that motherboard became the system board in the computer on which I am typing this blog today.
A third computer required a keyboard and mouse. (I already had a monitor, which is now the bedroom TV.) So back then I did some research, found one I really liked, and saw that it was available at Costco in one of their "value added" packages. It came with a mouse. Both are wireless. A little thing I think is called a "dongle" is plugged into a USB port and it becomes the wireless communicator for the keyboard and mouse.
When that third computer was cannibalized for its motherboard, the extra keyboard and mouse were stored — and forgotten. That was 2008.
Now we come to this week. A friend and I were comparing laptop computer/tablets at a coffee shop (it's a guy thing) and he mentioned ordering a keyboard for his. My Microsoft Surface 3 came with a keyboard in the box — another of those Costco value-added packages. But his mentioning a keyboard clicked something in my brain. What about that wireless keyboard and mouse that are stored away somewhere?
So here is the important issue. My biggest complaint about the Surface 3 is the lack of a numerical keypad on the keyboard. I use the Extended Character Set a lot. If you're not familiar…
Besides the characters that are available on your computer's keyboard, there are dozens of additional characters inside your computer. How do I get an "e" with a slanted line on top when I want to write the word "sauté"? When I type "Heat your oven to 375°F" in a recipe, where does that little "degrees" circle come from? Or how about "add ¼ cup of wine"? When I write about the El Niño, where does that ñ thing (called an eñe, pronounced enye) come from?
Things like the ellipsis (…), international characters (é, è, ç, ö), em dash (—), and the cent symbol (¢) are all in the computer, but not on the keyboard. You hold down the Alt key, press numbers on the numerical keypad, and then you release the Alt key. The character appears in your text. That's the Extended Character Set. Without a numerical keypad, which the Surface 3 lacks, you can't get those characters easily. They're in the Character Map app that comes with Windows, but it isn't easy to use. I prefer a numerical keypad.
So when I got home I found the keyboard and mouse. (Thankfully I had removed the batteries; no leaking to cause corrosion.) But would they work? They're seven years old. My Surface 3 is new, 2015 technology. I did need to get a driver from Microsoft, which did not have one for Windows 10. However, the Win8.1 driver works perfectly. I've been using my laptop with the wireless keyboard and mouse and it's like have a new toy all over again. I finally did away with my biggest complaint about that computer.
Besides loving the full-size keyboard, I love the fact that I was able to use 2008 hardware on a 2015 computer. (On the underside of the mouse, by the way, there is a label that says "manufactured August 2008" — so it really is old meets new.)
And Then Came Autumn…or Not
Here we are on the cusp of October and we're still enjoying daytime temperatures in the mid-80s. I'm liking it. The heat keeps me from shooting cooking videos in my kitchen, but I don't mind these temperatures. For several days in September we were up in the 90s, even approaching 100°F at times. That's too hot. 80s are okay with me.
And speaking of doing videos again, I had my follow-up phone call with the person at YouTube who is helping me improve my channel on their web site. She taught me how to add sections to my channel's homepage. I assembled all of the Minute Meals lessons into a single playlist and added them as a section. I'm working on a section for breads next. I don't want to do everything all at once. By adding things a little at a time I might keep my channel fresh. And a new trick I learned (more from that book I blogged about on Sunday) is that if I group popular videos, such as my French Bread video (currently more than 100,000 views) with videos not getting many views (Focaccia, at 1,034 views), I might increase the views of those neglected videos. It's worth trying. The person at YouTube liked the idea.
Sunday 2015.09.27
Upgrade
Despite a few glitches, the upgrade to Minute Meals went well. I received a couple reports of links that didn't work. One was a careless oversight on my part. I forgot to upload a header. The other was troubling. An image was missing from my hosting service's server. It was there before and I didn't remove it, which makes me wonder if I need to check all the images folders. There are over two hundred images in the Food Photos folder. I put it on my list of things to do.
Recipes
With the weather beginning to change, I'm starting to plan cooking videos again. I have plenty to do. I found 17 recipes that don't have a video on YouTube. The videos are on Curious.com, but I'd like all of them to be on YouTube, especially after the debacle with the Minute Meals videos. When I joined Curious the process of gifting them with videos was quite simple. I was happy to contribute to their efforts to build their site into a powerful teaching platform. However, over time more of the work was transferred from their staff to the artists.
I like YouTube better. The process is easier. So my goal this winter is to do something about those 17 recipe videos. Two are done already. This week's feature recipe, Mushroom Risotto, is one of them. For some of them I'll shoot a new video. For the others I'll probably load the video files back onto this computer from the archives and edit them again. Thankfully I keep good backups and good archives.
Revisiting the older recipes has another benefit. I'm finding mistakes. I created the Mushroom Risotto recipe five years ago. Part of the method of preparation (the paragraphs of text below the ingredients) was from a different recipe. I don't know how that happened, but it's fixed. And I wonder why no one sent me a note about it. I suspect that this is one of my least popular recipes. I'll know when I check the analytics on YouTube. If the video gets very few views, that will confirm it.
YouTube
I'm reading a book about using YouTube for merchandising.
In one sense it's an amusing book because the style would suggest it was written by an enthusiastic teenager. The author uses terms like "Make it big on YouTube!" a lot. The back cover promises, "Discover ways to become a self-made YouTube millionaire." I think that's a bit of a stretch. There is no mention of a publisher in the frontis matter and the ISBN would indicate this is a self-published book, probably printed by one of the many vanity houses that print and bind books for authors. The author probably has boxes of these books in his garage.
The writing is amateurish at best. There are numerous typographical and grammatical errors. There also isn't much of it. The text is very large, easily read by the most myopic of readers, with plenty of space between the lines to fill 144 pages. With standard page layout the book would probably be no more than 60 pages.
The most glaring oversight is the lack of screen shots of HTML pages readers will encounter when trying to navigate the various YouTube pages on the Internet. Other than the last chapter about using MySpace, there are no helpful graphics at all.
That said, the content — once you get past the bad grammar and sophomoric style — is useful enough. I am learning a few tricks. I've been uploading my videos to YouTube for more than five years and even though I have more than 200 videos in my channel, I believe I still don't know enough. I am learning. Tomorrow I will have another phone conversation with someone at YouTube who is helping me to elevate my channel for a better ranking.
The book is definitely not the "ultimate YouTube guide." It's more of an introduction and as such it might be useful to beginners who don't mind struggling with the YouTube screens. Some of them are not easy. I still can't find my AdSense page without referring to my written notes. Would I recommend the book? No. But I wouldn't advise avoiding it either. There is enough useful information to make the book moderately helpful for some people, if they don't mind struggling with it. For the experienced YouTube video creator, the book might fill some gaps in their knowledge.
Wednesday 2015.09.23
Happy Autumn
Today is the first day of fall — the Autumn Equinox. Summer has finally come to an end, at least on the calendar. Here in Southern California the weather continues to be hot, temperatures in the mid to high 80s. The nights are getting cooler. Autumn temperatures are only a few weeks away.
It won't be long before we'll know whether or not we'll receive copious rains from the El Niño system building in the Pacific. The latest predictions are 95% probability a major El Niño condition will exist through the winter months with an 80% probability of majors rain storms in Southern California.
Minute Meals
Sunday's upload of the Minute Meal videos to YouTube went well. The response was mostly positive. I feel good to see that project on YouTube and off my computer. I backed up all the files to an external hard disk, archived all the files to DVDs (it took 14 to hold them all), and then deleted them from the video hard disk on this computer. Given Curious.com's latest "best practices" submission guidelines, I'll probably stick with YouTube instead. It's a lot easier and I get excellent reports, helping to know how well the videos are doing. This month YouTube sent me another payment. It isn't much, but every little bit helps.
So far, the upgrade to the web site — changing the links from Lazy Man Meals to Minute Meals — seems to have gone flawlessly. I continue to do some testing and so far I don't see any broken links. The software I use to maintain the site has a "link checker" in it and it reports zero broken links. In the real world that might to be true, but so far I don't see any problems.
I did find two other problems: the "View the Video" button on two of the recipe pages was never linked to the YouTube video. That is fixed. Hopefully everything is perfect now.
Community Development Department of Housing
The mobile home park where I live underwent a major inspection yesterday. I don't know, yet, how my rental space ranked. I feel confident that everything under my control is in compliance with county ordinances. Both decks have proper stairs and railings. My shed is within the required specifications and built with non-flammable materials. Other than the stone, sand, and soil stored in my driveway (which I need to finish my landscaping project, when the manager gives me the approval I requested) I store nothing outdoors, either on my decks or in my yard. The only item on my back deck is a lawn chair. My home's registration is clearly displayed, as is my space number. My yard is clear of weeds and debris. I love my space.
Many homes in the park are in violation of ordinances. I see it all the time. Residents constructing something without first researching county and park rules, or using their rental space as a storage lot rather than a resident living space. One neighbor's weeds are totally out of control. Another leaves their tools wherever they last used them. And they knew the inspector was coming. Why didn't they clean up?
I am looking forward to the report, if any, from the Housing Department about my space. It will be sent directly to me by mail, if any violations were found in the inspection.
I feel a little proud of what I did here. I have a beautiful space, one of the best in the park, and I hear compliments from neighbors. There are a few who complain that my efforts make their space look trashy. But it's easy to blame someone else. With some regular maintenance their space could look good too.
Autumn
With the coming of the fall season my thoughts are on soups again. Today I am going to shoot a new video on homemade Chicken Soup. I have a video on Curious, but not on YouTube. Today's video will be uploaded to YouTube in coming weeks. Meanwhile, I have lots of chicken trim in the freezer, ready to make more stock. I'm just waiting for the daytime temperatures to cool.
I'll need to shoot new photographs. And speaking of which, yesterday I bought a small piece of polished stone to use under plates when I do food photography. From the look of the composition, I think it's granite. I tried the acid test. There was no foaming, so I know it isn't marble. I don't really care what it is. It could be synthetic. What matters most is that I think it will look good in photographs.
The price was good. When I told the proprietor I wanted to use it for amateur photography, he gave me the "artist discount." It cost only $5 per square food. From doing a little research on the Internet, slab granite can cost ten times that. I think the piece is scrap, part of a cutout for a sink in a counter top. There is a broken edge; so maybe it is a discard that fractured during installation. Whatever. I'm happy. Look for it in future food photographs.
Sunday 2015.09.20
The Conversion
All this past week I've been working on converting Lazy Man Meals to Minute Meals on this web site. Curious.com finally approved the course proposal they wanted. As I mentioned several months ago when they first solicited me on this project idea, they didn't like the name Lazy Man Meals. "Man" was too gender specific for them. They wanted something else, something gender neutral. I came up with the idea for Minute Meals because — if we're going to change the name anyway — "Lazy" might be too negative.
That all changed today. I opened the digital docu-sign thing and read the contract. Now I am required to create two additional videos — a one-minute promotional video and a three-minute video overview of the course. Enough already! I really want to get this project behind me. I enjoy making cooking videos. To devote so much of my time to lesson videos that have more to do with meal convenience than gourmet foods isn't very satisfying for me.
During last week I had encoded all the videos for YouTube, just in case. I will start the uploads this afternoon. Again, I really want to put this project behind me and YouTube seems like the best way to do it. I won't get the $1,000 advance, but I can live without it. I'm not wealthy, but neither am I struggling to pay my bills.
The course lessons are all about "Minute Meals" and each of them refers to this web site. Ergo: Lazy Man Meals is no longer appropriate. And so the conversion was necessary (even though I still feel a personal attachment to the old name).
Although I had to convert hundreds of HTML pages to link to the new Minute Meals page, I kept the buttons and link labels as "Lazy Man Meals" on the recipe pages and all the blog archive pages. They'll link okay; they will simply have the old name. I wanted to maintain some integrity with the past. All new recipes and blogs will use the new name. Thus you see the new "Minute Meals" button in the panel on the left and a new text link at the bottom of this page.
The updates also gave me a good excuse to look at my About the Cook page again. Other than changing the buttons, I hadn't changed the content since I started this web site five years ago.
Did the conversion go smoothly? I hope so. I did all the testing I could, but with 535 HTML pages on this web site, I'm sure there will be a few dead end links. It always happens. If you discover anything that doesn't work as it should, please feel free to use the "Contact" button on the left panel to let me know about it. I'll fix things quickly.
Books
Yesterday I attended the semi-weekly World News Discussion Group I enjoy. The Republican debate and Donald Trump were at the top of our list. I didn't enjoy the debate this time. It seemed more about sensationalism, for the sake of ratings, rather than substance. But that's CNN. They need to earn their advertising revenue dollars. I'm more in line with America's Test Kitchen. They don't put any advertising in their magazines because they don't want to be influenced by the revenue source. Keep it about the food.
However, I did learn about a Planned Parenthood used book sale in the city. I'm neutral on the debate of whether or not federal funding should be taken away. Whatever. I'm more interested in world news. I do enjoy books though. Talk about overwhelming! There were hundreds of tables, filled with many thousands of books. I didn't buy anything. It was too much all at once. I browsed for maybe 20 minutes, then I went home. If I try again, I'll go in the morning when I feel refreshed and when there might be fewer people. A Saturday afternoon was probably not the best time.
My problem is that I live in a mobile home. There is no room to store more books. I received one I purchased and I discarded three thinner books to make room for it. This week I received a book gift from a fan of this web site. It is also thick, more than a thousand pages, and I haven't yet found a place for it. And at Costco I purchased The World's Healthiest Foods by George Mateljan. It is also more than a thousand pages and I have yet to figure out how I am going to find a place for it on a bookshelf.
As for Cooking…
I've been waiting for the weather to change. Tomorrow and Tuesday were forecast to be rainy. I was planning to do a new video for Chicken Soup. The weather predictions have changed though. Sunny and warm, temperatures in the 80s. The soup will need to wait a little longer.
Short Addendum (added Sunday evening)
The Minute Meal videos are all on YouTube. They've been getting many views and I started reading some excellent comments. I made the right choice. Sometimes it's not about the money.
Wednesday 2015.09.16
"In Every Life a Little Rain Must Fall" — Longfellow
A little rain did indeed fall this week, mostly during the night between Monday and Tuesday. Where I live we had almost half an inch of rain. It isn't El Niño yet; this was remnants from tropical storm Linda in the Pacific.
It was my first test of the landscaping. Yesterday morning I walked around my yard. There were no puddles. No rain had ponded anywhere. I could see indications of a high water mark. The runoff had flowed the way I wanted it to. One of the rules about landscaping here in the trailer park is that proper consideration be given to drainage. My landscaping passed.
The Pendulum Swings
The weather here has been atypical for September. It is usually quite warm with cooling toward the end of the month when we transition from summer into autumn. Early this week we had rain. Precipitation is so rare this time of year it made for an interesting statistic in the summary I occasionally check. Even though we received less than half an inch of rain, our "% of Normal" rainfall so far this season is 511%. In other words, half an inch of rain by mid-September is five times the normal amount. Do a little math and the total amount of rain we see by this time of year, after last winter's rainy season ends, is about one tenth of an inch. We're ahead of schedule.
The bad news is that our reservoir is currently at 18% capacity. We're running out of water. Supposedly the water district is spending millions of dollars to put the desalination plant into operation again. We live on the Pacific coast and there is a lot of water out there.
As for the temperatures, they are swinging back and forth like a pendulum. Early this week we were enjoying mid-70s. By the end of the week we expect to be up in the mid-80s again. Then it will start cooling again.
Meteorologists were careful not to connect the week's rain directly with the building El Niño condition in the Pacific. The rain was remnants of hurricane Linda, which they attributed to El Niño — tangentially, if not directly, related.
Renewing Old Videos
This week I decided that some of my oldest videos, which no one is watching on YouTube, need to be brought up to modern times. So I made Mushroom Risotto again, shooting a new video, and giving away the risotto. (I enjoy making risotto, but I don't really care much about eating it.) Those early videos were done with a friend's camera, which was not capable of 1080p resolution. I eventually bought my own camera, a professional level high-definition 1080p Sony XDCAM. I love it. Also, when I first started making videos YouTube limited me to 15 minutes each, and standard definition. They have since upgraded my account to hi-def and unlimited length. So one of my projects this winter will be to replace many of the older videos with new HD ones.
Chicken Riggies
Chicken Riggies is a dish popular in upstate New York, but I don't think anyone hears of it elsewhere. It is so popular in and around Utica, New York that they have an annual festival/cookoff thing called Riggiefest. My recipe came from a request from someone who asked me to come up with a recipe because all the ones he tried didn't have the flavor he wanted. I researched many recipes and most of them suffered from the same problem — they were made with canned ingredients. Fresh is better. So I created my own recipe from scratch. If you're not familiar, it's a pasta dish made with rigatoni — thus the name Riggies. My recipe is in the Recipe Archive.
Sunday 2015.09.13
Desperation
In a blog post a year or two ago I mentioned having an air conditioner. It's not one of those window boxes. Mine is portable air conditioner. It can be rolled where needed, on its own casters. It's a little noisy, and I rarely use it. Most of the time it is unnecessary here in Southern California. But there are times when the comfort is welcome.
I didn't use it all last year, and I don't think I needed it the year before either. I keep it covered and tucked out of the way. Thursday it was time to bring it out.
During the day the temperature here rose to nearly 100°F (38°C). I was okay. I have that evaporative cooler that works well enough when I'm sitting in front of it, usually reading or watching TV. A glass of iced homemade fresh lemonade on the side is an added benefit. Bedtime, however, is difficult. I can't sleep if it is too hot.
The evaporative cooler doesn't work well in the bedroom. It uses water, which evaporates, cooling the air. However, the air must be renewed regularly because as the humidity from the cooler increases, it evaporates less and therefore cools less. The damp air also makes the bed sheets feel damp and sticky.
In my bedroom I have a bright LED lamp. The upright column part has a clock and thermometer in it. I use the lamp mostly for reading because the light is perfect for my ebook reader with the e-ink display (which requires a light source). As bedtime approached, the thermometer reported a room temperature of 90°F (27°C). Time for a little reminiscing…
When I was growing up in New England our home was air conditioned. Besides the heat in summer, there was the humidity. My father could tolerate neither. During the day we kept the bedroom doors closed to reduce the amount of space to keep cool. It saved on electricity. At night the bedroom doors were opened and I remember falling asleep to the cool comfort of air conditioning in summer. I thought about it Thursday evening.
I hadn't used my air conditioner in so long, I wasn't sure it would still work. I gathered everything I needed — when I bought the unit I made a window panel perfect for my windows, to which the exhaust hose attaches, venting hot air outside. It started up well enough. After a moment or two the compressor kicked in and it started cranking out cold air. Ah, relief.
At bedtime I turned the fan down to low and kept it running all night. It was noisy, but it kept the room blissfully cool all night. I slept like a baby.
I was so happy with the results, I moved the air conditioner into the living room on Friday, predicted to be another scorcher. It gave me an excuse to go to Home Depot and buy a sheet of clear acrylic to fabricate a panel to fit in one of my living room windows, so much larger than the ones in the bedroom. With everything hooked up and running, it starting pumping out air that measured 53°F (12°C) at the output vent — a lot colder than I could ever hope to see coming out of my evaporative cooler.
The air conditioner kept my living room and kitchen (I kept the bedroom doors closed) comfortable, but it could not compete with the heat outside; it doesn't have enough BTUs. After sunset it began to finally make some progress cooling down my home. That evening I wanted to leave it running in the living room and open my bedroom door, like in the good old days in New England. But the heat had broken. It was already in the low 70s outside. The window fan would be enough.
The television news, by the way, reported several areas here in Southern California breaking heat records this week. It wasn't that hot where I live, but it was warm. Other parts of the state also dealt with devastating wildfires and the most southern areas saw rain and thunderstorms, effects from hurricane (actually cyclone in the Pacific) Linda off the Baja Peninsula coast. So 90°F is hardly something to complain about.
And the National Weather Service increased the probability of a major El Niño condition lasting through the winter from 90% to 95%. That's the El Niño. No one can predict rain several months in advance. The probabilities look good though. Some are saying it won't be enough to end California's drought. Others are reporting that Californians are conserving water beyond requirements — 31% at last report, 25% being the requirement — and we might need to conserve perpetually. I've done my part. I have no lawn anymore. My yard is all sandstone and Dymondia ground cover now. The rain we do get, if any, will help ease the situation.
"Never Give Up; Never Surrender"
That's a line from the movie Galaxy Quest. Now that I have my yard landscaped with sandstone and most of the Dymondia planted, I am thinking about ornamentals in pots. One of my ideas is to germinate and grow little citrus trees. I don't really want the fruit; just the plants. A few months ago I bought some "Australian Minneoloa Tangelos" at the grocery store and germinated the seeds. Satisfied there was enough root for them to grow, I transferred them to soil and waited. And waited. I finally gave up, figuring the soil had maybe dried out (even though I kept it watered) and the sprouts died.
I started some more in a little plastic germination box that I blogged about at the beginning of this month (see below). A seed is finally sprouting.
Now what? Meanwhile, trying to improve my odds, I bought some Mandarin oranges at Costco and I have those seeds germinating as well. I'll probably keep the healthiest looking plants and toss the others. I only need one or two of each.
Wednesday 2015.09.09
Summer Still Fading?
This week summer is holding on. Out of curiosity I checked my September blogs from the past two years. Always warm weather at the beginning of September. Today and tomorrow are expected to be the warmest days of the week, with temperatures in the high 80s and low 90s. A friend asked if I planned to cook anything special this week. No. The most I can cope with is a pitcher of cold lemonade, a glass of which I am sipping right now as I type this. In fact, it feels too warm to even type; so this blog will be a short one.
Home Improvement
I did manage a decent kitchen project this week, starting early enough in the morning to finish while the day was still cool. I replaced my kitchen faucet.
My old faucet was working okay. However, after having the galvanized pipes in my home replaced with all copper pipe, the water pressure has been too good. My old faucet was equipped with a water-saving flow limiter, which wasted less of California's precious water, but which caused an increase in water pressure inside the faucet when I was running the water. Water dripped from the central valve whenever I used the faucet. I took my time about replacing it because there was no leaking when the water was turned off.
I wasn't sure I even wanted to replace it. I hate plumbing. Costco has a faucet in stock and is selling them this month at $80 off retail. That was enough to convince me. Installation went well, after I removed the old faucet (most of the work) and cleaned off all the old buildup of minerals and rust underneath where the old unit was secured. Now I'm happy. This one has a pull-out end thingy that can be switched between flowing water or spray.
Feeling encouraged by the success with the kitchen sink, I bought a faucet for the bathroom vanity. That's tomorrow's project.
Meanwhile…
My new computer glasses arrived earlier today. They make work on the computer so much better. I can see clearly again. And printed text, especially small print, is so much easier to read now.
Sunday 2015.09.06
What Price Heroism?
This week I ordered a new pair of glasses for using with my computer. They call them "office" glasses. There will be no distance vision; so I won't use them for driving. They will only be used in my home office to better see my computers. The bottom portion will also be better for reading. I haven't got them yet, but the eye doctor set up a mock pair in his office so that I would see how the lenses would work. I really like them and I'm a little excited about bringing them home. Maybe later this week or early next week.
I used a Costco rebate check, which more than paid for the frames and lenses. There was money left over; so I ordered some prescription sunglasses for driving. They will also have progressive lenses, but the top portion will be for distance (driving) and the bottom for reading, just in case I need to check directions on paper while I'm driving somewhere.
Ordering the sunglasses made me think about how I lost my original ones several years ago. I lost them saving someone's life. He fell off a wharf down in the city. I was close enough to jump down to a lower deck and grab him. I couldn't get him up onto the wharf — there was no ladder — but I was able to hold him up enough to save him from drowning by keeping his head above water until a boat was hailed to come help him out of the water.
In the scramble, my sunglasses fell into the ocean. I've been without them for a long time and I do so little driving (I have a 1993 Nissan Pathfinder with only 63,000 original miles on it) that I haven't felt like I really needed to replace them. However, the opportunity came up and I had that rebate check, so why not?
People Are Strange
I've mentioned before that I attend a semi-weekly world news discussion group. Although it can be exhausting interacting with seven people for two hours, I usually enjoy it. A new member joined and she has left me wondering. At the previous meeting she came across very anti-Semitic, saying things like, "Don't people see that the Jews are causing all the problems in the Middle-east?" When the group's moderator diplomatically said he is Jewish, she finally shut up. Yesterday she kept arguing, "Why can conservative Christians see that abortion is a woman's choice?" She was told several time that they have their opinions, to which they are entitled. She kept repeating, "But why can't they see they're wrong?" I gave up trying to understand her. She seems to have a very singular point of view that excludes all other perspectives. (She also signs up for all the "singles" dating groups — I checked her profile — which also has me wondering…)
Another group is meeting later today to discuss Dr. Brené Brown's book, The Gifts of Imperfection. I signed up to attend, but I have pretty much made up my mind to skip it. The current count is 12 attending with two waiting. Eight people in a group is about the maximum I can interact with. 12 for two hours would be too overwhelming for me.
If you're wondering about my becoming overwhelmed — or perhaps you've experienced it yourself — Dr. Elaine Aron wrote the book The Highly Sensitive Person. In this case, sensitivity does not refer to one's feelings being easily hurt. In her research she found that about 20% of humans occasionally experience over-stimulation in some environments. Their brain attends to too much of the information coming in through the senses — mostly sound and vision — and can become overwhelmed. The symptoms are typically fatigue and difficulty concentrating. That's me. One hour in a large and noisy group is about the limit of my tolerance before I start feeling like I need to shut down. Yesterday's world news discussion group was more tiring than usual because it was an animated group with most people trying to talk at the same time. Two of us shut down after a while.
I know how to take care of myself. A good book works well. Last night I started reading again one of Robert Johnson's book, He: Understanding Masculine Psychology. Not male psychology, masculine psychology. We all have aspects of masculine and feminine psychology. Johnson also wrote the book, She: Understanding Feminine Psychology. I really enjoy his books — I have six of them — because he discusses Jungian depth psychology using literary characters and myths to illustrate the concepts. They are very readable.
Trees
Now that the landscaping is done (other than still planting and cultivating Dymondia ground cover), I want to grow some small potted trees for better appearance in places. When I was a teenager I liked experimenting with citrus trees. They were easy to grow. Lately, however, I'm not having any luck with them. I germinate the seeds, see a good root and some sprouting, and then I put them in damp soil. I know they like sandy soil with a good organic component and good drainage. However, they soon fade.
This morning I put together two sorts of sprouting boxes made from the plastic containers that held the baby spinach I buy for my salads and using the paper trays from egg cases.
Hopefully I can start germinating seeds better before I move them to a pot of soil. My ultimate goal is to eventually have a few small islands of potted plants decorating my yard.
Wednesday 2015.09.02
September At Last
The heat last week was almost brutal at times. Thankfully we never saw any triple-digit temperatures here. Other areas in Southern California were hotter. The warmest temperature I saw was 96°F (36°C). Early September can still be a warm time of year, but at least we are nearing a time for progressive cooling. Besides being a little more comfortable, it makes cooking videos easier to do. I shot a short video last week and between clips I was patting my forehead with a damp cloth to keep down the perspiration. It would get in my eyes and sting.
An interesting question came up last week. Would I consider doing videos about sous vide cooking? If you're not familiar with it, the food is vacuum sealed in plastic bags and cooked in a temperature-controlled water bath. If you like your steak medium rare (à point), you set the water temperature to 135°F (57°C). Of course, from surface to center the steak will be pink. For a finished look you might heat up a cast iron skillet or grill pan very hot and give the steak a quick sear on both sites for color before serving.
Would I consider doing such videos? Yes, if someone like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg wanted to fund it. A decent home sous vide system costs about $500. Costco currently sells them. Would I use it other than doing videos? Probably not. I have a $200 Kuhn-Rikon pressure cooker that I rarely use. It's handy when I need to cook dry beans quickly for soup, like for my Pasta Fagioli, or to cook brown rice quickly. Otherwise, it sits in the cupboard unused. Besides, most of the time I eat quick heat-and-eat foods I prepare in advance, especially when it's too hot to cook.
Can't Give 'Em Up
More computer parts arrived this morning. I ordered another two-door 3½-inch mobile rack caddy bay thing. I blogged about it before. I only bought one earlier because I needed to know whether or not it would work for my purpose. It does, so I ordered the second one.
I read an article this week that said Windows XP should not be loaded onto a solid state drive (SSD). Although I disposed of the last of my legacy hardware (by donating them to a charity thrift store), there are still a few software utilities that I can only use in XP. And so, among the items I ordered this time were two small 2½-inch (actually 2¾") hard disk drives (HDDs). They typically go into laptop computers, but I want them for the desktops because they are small enough to slide into the caddy bays I ordered. The big test will be to see if I can load XP onto them. Will the new computers run an old operating sytem? Or will I get a "not compatible with hardware" error? If it doesn't work, I'll still have one of these old computers.
Another issue is some software that will work fine on Windows 7 but not in Windows 10. I like Win10. I use it everyday. But it's still buggy. I have to click the Calculator tile twice before it will open. I have to "Eject" external devices twice before the computer will tell me it is safe to remove them. This morning the new Internet browser, Edge, wouldn't open until I rebooted my computer. And Win10 denied me my Administrator rights until I rebooted a second time.
My plan is to beg, cajole, importune, or otherwise persuade Microsoft to allow me to install my OEM versions of Windows 7 on my new computers when I build them. OEM versions can only ever be installed on one computer. They can't be ported to new computers, even if the old ones are destroyed. You need to buy the operating system again. However, I've spoken to their tech support people on the phone before and they've always been very helpful. I'm thinking — hoping — that if I tell them I'm using Win10 all the time, but that I need Win7 only for a few legacy utiltities, maybe they'll take pity on an old geezer like me.
So, if all goes well, rather than having dual-boot systems, I'll have tri-boot computers — XP, Win7, and Win10. I'm not sure of the "cool" factor, but I'm easily impressed.
Other items I bought were two new HDDs that will be my data drives. The article I mentioned above also said not to use SSDs for data drives because they are written to too often. HDDs are better for that. And I ordered two ASUS CD/DVD/Blu-Ray burners. I archive all my cooking videos to DVD blanks (along with redundant backups) and I am currently filling box #5. Using blank blu-ray disks, although more expensive, will take up a lot less space. They hold five times the data; so they're more economical in the long run.
For those who might be interested in the price: Spent so far (I'm trying not to think about it) is $2,237.67, and I have yet to buy the motherboard, microprocessor, memory, and monitors. I keep telling myself these are once-in-a-lifetime dream machines. I'll probably never build computers like these again. Maybe better.
Pinning
I created 10 new pins for Pinterest yesterday. It's tedious, but it is supposed to help drive traffic to my YouTube videos and my web site. They look really good and I'm always happy with myself when they're done. Meanwhile, I really need to spend some time on YouTube and enhance my channel. Just one more thing to get to, eventually.