FEBRUARY 2023
Sunday 2023.2.26
Tree
The journey of the tree wasn't bad, and it was ultimately delivered two days ahead of schedule. As mentioned in Wednesday's blog, I ordered a fake tree for my yard from Amazon. It was shipped from San Bernardino, California, which is only 150 miles from where I live. But it was sent to an Amazon shipment center at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport in Texas. From there it was sent back to San Bernardino, then Santa Barbara, and then sent out for delivery on Thursday. I'm trying to think up something witty to say about racking up frequent flyer miles for a tree, but my mind is blank.
Now I have two trees in boxes in my living room.
One Down, Six to Go
Feeling a little spry on Thursday afternoon, I removed one of the former citrus trees from its planter. It was a Buddha's Hand until the aphids and ants got to it and killed it. I occasionally sprayed it with insecticide, but it didn't do any good.
Getting the tree out was easy. Sifting the soil was most of the work. I can use the dirt, either in my yard when I finish grouting the sandstone, or in pots or small planters when I start a new crop of herbs next month. It will be all the usual ones — oregano, thyme, rosemary, mint, marjoram, and parsley. I'll probably add chives this year. I'll also decide whether or not to grow another tomato plant. I really enjoyed the last one.
The next tree to go will be the dwarf tangerine. That one is completely dead. The planter might go too, or I might use it for a new tomato plant. It's one of four that were given to me. They were free, but I never liked them.
Weather
We did indeed enjoy some rain. It wasn't a major wind event, but it was cold. There was snow on the mountains yesterday morning. That's unusual for Southern California.
A few flash flood warnings were issued, mostly for creeks that typically overflow when it rains or streets that often flood. Where I live, nothing notable happened, except that I enjoyed watching it rain as I sat on the sofa reading a book with the drapes open.
The reservoirs are full. The rain gauge at Cachuma Lake recorded more than seven inches during the storm. The one at the Gibraltar Dam saw nearly ten inches of rainfall. We are at 143% of our "Normal Water-Year" rainfall. "Normal-to-Date" is 204%, and more rain is expected this week.
The Third Time's a Charm
I briefly took an interest in Pinterest again. I opened one of my former pins in Adobe Illustrator and the font was no longer available. Hmm. Fortunately, I have several font libraries on CDs; so I searched there.
Where do you put fonts on a computer? There is no Fonts folder in Illustrator. I tried my Adobe InDesign folder. Okay, but it doesn't show up in Illustrator. I tried another Adobe folder, but I forget which one. Finally, I copied the fonts to my Windows Fonts folder. That did the trick.
Then I looked at my pins. I had created 70 of them, organized into 14 boards. I looked at them in the Pinterest web site. Most of them had few views, if any. So that left me wondering why I should bother with them at all. They didn't seem to be accomplishing my original goal of attracting traffic to my YouTube channel and to this web site. Ultimately, I decide I could make better use of my time doing other things.
And, Finally, Reading
I finished reading the 25th Discworld book, Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett. Working backward (because I couldn't remember where I left off) I started reading book 24, The Truth. It has a hint of familiarity; so this might be the last book, which I remember starting but never finishing. I'll know more as I get deeper into it.
Wednesday 2023.2.22
Rain
This time it appears we might finally get a little more rain. NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), AKA The National Weather Service, has been predicting "a slight chance of rain" each weekend for several weeks. As each weekend approached the probability declined and the forecast eventually changed to "partly cloudy."
I've been watching it this week. Today there is a 40% probability of rain. Tomorrow that changes to 60% and 100% on Friday. The rain continues through Saturday, with sunshine on Sunday.
We don't really need more rain. The reservoir is full. However, I find the rain pleasant. I've blogged about it before. It's something I looked forward to in retirement. Rather than having to go outside in inclement weather to commute to work, I can stay home, warm and dry, and watch it rain. I like to open the drapes during rainy days.
A Mighty Wind
It was difficult to sleep last night. It wasn't because of my water works. The wind was howling. This morning there were roof shingles in my yard. They weren't from my roof; I live in an older mobile home with a galvanized sheet metal roof. They must have come from elsewhere in the neighborhood.
I walked around, looking at the homes nearby — the ones with white shingles. They looked okay. So, maybe they came from one of the condos next door, or further down the street. With the such a strong wind blowing, they might have traveled a fairly good distance.
I did notice a tree limb on the road alongside the park. And the electricity went out for several minutes during the night. As for my yard, everything looks okay.
Trees
This week I ordered the second of the fake trees I want to put in my yard. This one is a fiddle leaf fig tree. I want each one to be different. The first was a ficus. I haven't potted the first tree yet. It's still in a box in my living room. In time, I'm hoping to acquire six or seven trees.
If you've read this blog long enough, you know that I've had trees, real ones, citrus trees to be exact. Lemon, orange, tangerine, Buddha's hand, pomelo, and a lime, in planters around my home. I'm getting older and I'm getting tired of mucking about with buckets of water, insecticides, and fertilizer. I want to plant a fake tree and watch the aphids and leaf miners go nuts trying to figure out how to suck the sap out of that one. It ain't got any. Hah!
Fake trees, if they look real enough and if you can believe the advertising — you'd have to get up really close to see it isn't real — would have all the beauty of healthy living trees without all the maintenance. That's what I call useful simplification.
They're expensive — the citrus trees were given to me, free — but as the expression goes, "You get what you pay for." I didn't pay for the citrus trees and what I got was a lot of work, along with the beauty, of course. With the fake trees I'm hoping to get the beauty without the work. That's what I'm paying for.
I also need them, in a sort of way. Several months ago someone parked a truck at the edge of my yard. Two of the wheels were on my sandstone. They broke them. I didn't spend thousands of dollars and devote hundreds of hours of hard work to provide a nice place to park a truck. So, the trees, in their planters, are set on the edges of my little mobile home space, keeping vehicles at a safe distance. It works.
But, Go Figure
I ordered the tree from Amazon. They sent me a tracking number. I checked it. The starting point was San Bernardino, CA, which is about 150 miles from my home. It was shipped to Texas. Huh? Specifically, the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. I wonder where it will go next.
I Learned Something New This Week
Assumption is the mother of all screw ups. Actually, I already knew that, but I learned it again this week.
One of my favorite computer games is something named Ricochet Infinity. It's an Atari Breakout clone. Simply put, the player is faced with a configuration of bricks, a ship and a ball. Hit the bricks with the ball, knocking them out, until they're all gone. Then move on to the next level.
I never played Breakout, but I enjoyed one of its successors, Arkanoid. I saw the game at an Amiga computer event in Los Angeles. I used to own an Amiga 2000. I watched a young man play Arkanoid all the way through to the final level. I was hooked. On the way home, I stopped at the Amiga store in Ventura and bought a version of the game.
Alas, my Amiga is long gone. I bought it in 1987. It was my first computer. I loved it. However, Commodore bought the company, hoping to turn the computer into a desktop productivity platform to compete with the IBM PC. The Amiga was a graphics computer, not an office computer. The Amiga company struggled under the new management until it finally foundered in 1994 when Commodore shut down it's Amiga division and then filed for bankruptcy.
That was sad. The Amiga was the first truly multitasking computer. Although there was a fun war of words between Amiga and Macintosh devotees about which computer was truly the best, the Amiga won because of its multitasking capabilities. The Amiga was also a color computer back when the Mac used a black-and-white monitor. After the Amiga I bought a PC and now I build my own.
Back to Ricochet Infinity: The game came with several levels of play. There was also an editor that allowed users to design their own level sets. The Ricochet company, Reflexive Entertainment, maintained a web site on which designers could upload their sets to share them with others. Over time, I downloaded them all and played them all. Reflexive shut down its operations, including the online database, in 2010. I still have all the levels.
I played all the levels and there were no new ones to acquire; so, I thought I'd be smart and rename the levels by adding "_01" to the end of the titles. However, this is where I really screwed up. I thought the file extension was ".Ricochet" and therefore I changed them all. Oops. All the levels disappeared from my game. Thankfully I keep those backups I mentioned in Sunday's blog. The correct extension is ".RicochetI", the I at the end is for Infinity. Dumb me.
It took the better part of yesterday morning, but I sorted out the problem and restored my game files to their correct titles. I also burned all my acquired levels to a CD for permanent storage.
I Learned Something Else This Week.
Are you familiar with myosin? Me neither. (Actually, I probably shouldn't assume you don't — there go my assumptions again.) It's a protein in meat. If ground meat, such as hamburger, is kneaded enough, either by hand or in a mixer, the myosin strands develop and give the meat a satisfying texture. It's important when making sausages too.
I don't knead my sausage meat enough and therefore my sausages have a grainy texture. Now that I know about myosin, I'll try putting the meat in my stand mixer and give it a good kneading the next time I make sausages.
Sunday 2023.2.19
OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)
Okay, this really is a bit OCD. Recently a friend got me interested again in the Terry Pratchett books. I've read most of them, but some of the later ones I never got to. This past week I read The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rats and The Last Hero. Both are funny books. If you enjoy comic fantasy stories, the books are well worth reading.
That second one was a problem; though, not in a literary sense. I got it free and it was evidently an inaccurate rendering done in the Calibre software. There were many places where the punctuation was inaccurate. I tend to be fussy about such things, especially if I really like a book and I might want to read it again in the future.
A case in point: One of my all-time favorite books is A Room With a View by E.M. Forster. I've read it many times. Many years ago I bought a copy at Barnes & Noble. I could tell there was an error in it. I checked a few ebook versions and they all contained the same error. Finally I borrowed a copy from the local university library. It was a "reference" version and it was correct. So I made my own ebook version with the proper text.
I have the Sigil software on my computers. It is used for creating ebooks in EPUB format. That's a format that is readable on many tablets and computers. I had The Last Hero on my Kobo ebook reader. I kept the book open in Sigil as I read the book, making corrections as necessary. Now I have a clean copy (unless I missed something).
I think I might have read Thief of Time by the same author, but I'll try it again. It has been quite a long time since I read any of Pratchett's Discworld books; so, even if I did read it several years ago, it might be fun to read it again.
Oops
I don't know how I let it go for so long. Maybe because I've had other stuff on my mind. My last backup of the other computer was one year ago, February 17, 2022. Needless to say, I immediately did a fresh backup.
The Lady Gets Her Name
I've blogged about it before. Many years ago I bought a sculpture in an antique store. The manager didn't know what it was; so, he sold it to me for only a few hundred dollars. It took a long time, but I eventually found the sculptor's name and the name of the figurine — The Snake Dancer by Claire Colinet.
It typically sells in auction for $5,000 to $8,000. Or, at least, that was what it sold for back when I first researched it. Some of her pieces have sold for more than $250,000.
I finally got around to having a brass plate engraved for it.
There are two pieces of provenance that point to Colinet. She was born and raised in Belgium. She used a Belgian coin, minted with a hole in the center, as a washer in the base. The coin in my statue is dated 1928.
The other piece of provenance is the marble used for the base. She often used that same color and pattern of marble. You see it in other of her castings.
I'm hoping the plaque will give the sculpture more authenticity, should I still have it when I pass away and my belongings go into auction. I want it to fetch a fair price, not be tossed into a box of knickknacks sold for a few dollars.
Doctor
On Friday I went to a doctor for my "annual" wellness exam. I emphasize annual because at 71 I've never had one before. I don't like those exams. It's an excuse to charge my insurance for something.
My mother worked for doctors. She told us never to get a physical examination. She said not to go to a doctor unless we had a problem we could not solve ourselves. When I accidentally put a screwdriver all the way through my left hand several months ago I grabbed a clean piece of paper towel and squeezed the puncture wound for a while until the bleeding stopped.
Not much was learned at the appointment. A few weeks ago I went to a lab to have blood drawn for tests. The doctor said my numbers were not ideal, but they were within safe parameters. I don't remember them, but if one outcome is ideal at 10 and 15 is considered too high, mine was around 13.5 — on the high side, but not a reason for concern. Some were a little high, some were a little low, but for a man 71 years old, they weren't bad.
Before leaving, I made an appointment for another annual exam next year. When the time comes, I'll probably cancel it.
Finally, The Reservoir
Although it hasn't been raining in recent days, I checked the county's Rainfall and Reservoir Summary. Our local reservoir finally reached 100% capacity. On Friday morning it was at 100.1%. That's quite an accomplishment, considering the lake was at 31% at the beginning of the rainy season.
Rain is possible later this week, but those "slight chance" predictions never amount to anything. NOAA has been forecasting a day or two of rain each week since the storms that filled our reservoir. So far, none of them have resulted in a drop of rain falling here. But that's okay. The lake is full. And the total rainfall so far this season is more than 110% the yearly average. If no more rain falls, we'll finish the season above normal.
Wednesday 2023.2.15
Organized
I like to be organized. I'm not obsessive about it, but there are some things that I do, which have value.
On Sunday afternoon I took another inventory of my freezer. The previous one was in September of last year; so, it's not a critical issue.
This past week I was tempted to buy more ribs. They were on sale at $1.77 per pound. The lowest I'd seen for several months, maybe a year, was $1.99. It's not a significant savings, but it was a temptation.
I'm glad I didn't buy them. Doing the inventory of my freezer, I found four vacuum-sealed packets of ribs, three bones each, I didn't know I had. I like to cook one packet in a sous vide bath for 24 hours at 150°F (66°C). Then I mop them with some barbecue sauce and finish them in the air fryer. Recently I prepared some for a friend and he approved.
More Chili
As planned, I used the other piece of tri-tip I bought to make another pot of Real Texas Chili. Now I have a dozen portions in the freezer. That should hold me for a while.
I like using my Kuhn Rikon pressure cooker, especially on my Breville PolyScience induction cooker. It's really easy to maintain a constant temperature, and therefore a constant pressure. It's not quite as set-and-forget as my Instant Pot, but it works well enough.
One possible disadvantage of cooking in a pressure cooker is when making a thickened soup or stew. With a sealed lid, no moisture is lost. The broth might be thin and watery. I add more flour afterward and bring it to a boil to thicken the soup. It works.
Super Bowl (some Roman numerals)
What were those? 57? If the football industry thought it was really important we knew, they'd put them in the numbers we all understand. Actually, I'd like to see a digital watch using Roman numerals. Try to be somewhere on time with a watch like that to guide you.
As football games go… It didn't engage me during the first half. In fact, I fell asleep briefly in my chair. It was the second half that was exciting, especially the fourth quarter. I wasn't rooting for either team. I like the Los Angeles Chargers because of their quarterback, Justin Herbert. I've been following him since he played for the Oregon Ducks. So I didn't really care which team won. I wanted to see an entertaining game and I wasn't disappointed.
Well, It Was Good While it Lasted
In Sunday's blog I mentioned the new sign lighting outside my home. It lit up the front street well, making me feel a little safer. Monday night the sign was no longer working. It was off last night too. For how long, I wonder…
And Then There Is the Weather
This has been an interesting week, so far, weather-wise. Yesterday there was a high wind warning with predictions some areas might see winds topping 60 mph. It wasn't windy where I live. Last night was cold. The forecast was for 35°F (1.7°C). Tonight is supposed to be a little colder, 32°F (0°C). In some parts of the continent that's almost balmy, but it's unusual here in Southern California. For Friday and Saturday there was a prediction of some rain, possibly, but that has since disappeared.
Sunday 2023.2.12
Light at Night
And the Lord said, "Let there be light," and lo, Thomas Edison was born.
Wednesday afternoon was a bit fun. As mentioned in Wednesday's blog, workers were working on the park sign outside my home. By mid-afternoon they were done. I waited until it started to get dark and, sure enough, the sign lit up and flooded the area with light. It's so much safer now.
I wasn't sure how my sleep would be affected. As it turned out, it didn't affect my sleep at all. I have blackout drapes in my home. I got them free.
When I was working for the local university the department was making changes to a large meeting room. It had blackout drapes. They were a problem. The drapes were long and heavy and this caused problems with the tracks for opening and closing them. It was decided to remove them and have the windows tinted instead. The cost for removing the drapes and the tracks was estimated to be around $500. I offered to remove them for free, with the proviso I get to keep the drapes and hardware. My home needed replacement curtains.
Removing everything took very little time. I needed to alter the drapes. They were about ten feet long top to bottom. I needed less than three feet. I installed the rails and curtains in my home office and my bedroom. They are old-school in design, pleated at the top. But they work well. And, I have extra hardware in the case of a failure. Occasionally a carrier slide might break or lose its ball bearings, but I have dozens of those.
What became of the extra fabric I removed? It is folded and stored. I used some of it to make blackout curtains for the living room for when I need to block out the light when shooting videos. The color and brightness of sunlight can change during the day. For steady light, I have studio lighting in my kitchen.
Distant Friends
Several years ago there was a neighbor here in the trailer park and she was an excellent event coordinator. She arranged several gatherings among the residents. They were fun. However, she and her boyfriend moved away and the gatherings stopped. Covid didn't do us any good either.
As mentioned in an earlier blog, someone gave me a sewing machine. I didn't need a fifth machine; so I offered it to her. As it turned out, she was planning a visit to SoCal anyway to see her sons and other family members here in town. She came to visit yesterday morning and we spent some time catching up with each other, and going over the sewing machine, which I told her was a Valentine's Day present. It was a fun visit.
I feel good about that machine. She had been wanting one. Now she has a good old Singer that will probably last longer than she will and might be an heirloom to leave to a younger generation.
Chili
Smart & Final, a West Coast grocery store chain, put trimmed tri-tip on sale this week, $4.99 per pound (regularly $8.99), limit two. I've been wanting to make Real Texas Chili again. Some people chafe at the word real in this recipe; so I call it Texas Beef Chili. The original recipe is from the late Craig Claiborne and he called it Real Texas Chili. He was a food critic with the New York Times. People chafe at the name New York too. How could a New Yorker be an expert on Texas chili?
Claiborne was born and raised in Mississippi. He traveled throughout the South tasting chili at fairs and cook-offs. It was one of his favorite foods. He was also an author of several cookbooks. I have one of them. He's no wannabe when it comes to cooking.
Although Texas chili is made with chuck, I used some of the tri-tip I bought. And rather than cooking it for two hours on the stove, I cooked it for 20 minutes in my Instant Pot using the pressure cooker function. It's good. After enjoying a small bowl, I put six portions in the freezer. I have another piece of beef; so I'll make more, probably later today.
Real Texas Chili is one of my winter foods. It really satisfies on a cold day. I stretch it quite a bit by plating it over steamed rice.
Wednesday 2023.2.8
Earthquake
The earthquake in Turkey and Syria was devastating this week. The area is known for tremors; however, the cities are also known for older buildings that were erected before the countries' stricter building codes. As of this morning the number who had died exceeded 11,000.
Here in California the state is known for its earthquakes. Where I live the quakes happen more frequently than in a place like San Francisco. Therefore, the tension is released before it can build up enough to cause a catastrophic event.
Sausages
On Monday I made more sausages — Italian sausages this time. I did something a little different. Per the recipe, I toasted the peppercorns, fennel and coriander seeds in a skillet for 2 to 3 minutes, then I let them cool. I ground them to a powder in a spice grinder (blade coffee grinder) and returned them to the pan. Then I added a quarter cup of water and brought the mixture to a boil. I let it cool and then added it to the ground pork.
Rather than using one of the LEM Backwoods flavoring mixes I have, I used a recipe I found on the internet. The sausages were a little too salty — I prefer to go light on the salt — and I would probably use less coriander next time, but they were good. I look forward to using these in other recipes.
But for a first meal, I cooked some spaghetti, sauced it with some homemade Marinara and plated it with a sautéed Italian sausage on the side. It was a delicious dinner.
State of the Union
Did you listen to the President's State of the Union Address yesterday evening? I did. It was okay. He was a little confrontational at times, which I appreciated. He showed he was not afraid of confrontation. And I believe some of it was deserved.
One of my constant complaints about our government is that it doesn't govern. Congress — both sides of the aisle — seem far more interested in making the other side look bad rather than dealing with the problems our nations has.
Computer Stuff
I just purchased the latest version of Cyberlink PowerDVD (v22) for $60. Here's the thing: I have a lot of videos, such as Only Murders in the Building, that should play on my Yamaha Blu-ray player. They are in MKV format and those typically play fine. However, some don't. Now that I have a new laptop computer with an HDMI-out port, I can connect it to my home theater system. The laptop runs Windows 11. My older version worked, but the latest version is optimized for Windows 11; so, I look forward to watching some of these videos on my big screen TV.
South Park
Worth mentioning: The newest season of South Park premiers this evening. I'll be watching, and recording.
And a Quick Addendum
This morning there were workers in my yard. The materials looked electrical; so, I asked if they were going to repair the sign. The man said yes, with new lighting and a new facing. Finally! I've been wanting that sign lit up because it fills the area with light, which is better for security.
Sunday 2023.2.5
Spy Balloon
Like most people, I was fascinated with the stories about a Chinese spy balloon floating above the USA this week. I was hoping the military would come up with a way to shoot a hole in the balloon that would allow it to drift slowly down to earth. Yesterday it was still up in the sky, over the eastern USA. When President Biden was questioned about it, he said, "We're going to take care of it." Later in the day it was shot down when above the Atlantic just off shore.
One interesting report I heard discussed the cost of making such a spy balloon compared to the cost of putting a spy satellite into orbit. A thousand of these balloons could be launched for the price of putting one satellite in space. I'm not sure that's accurate, but it sounded good on TV.
China claimed it was a weather balloon that drifted off course. The Chinese government apologized about it. That makes sense. They don't want us to shoot it down and study the debris to gather intelligence about their latest spy technology. After it was brought down the Chinese changed their tune. They were angry. Why? We did them a favor, didn't we? We took a potentially dangerous rogue weather balloon out of the sky.
A Little More Rain
The forecast for last night was 80% probability of rain. I looked forward to it because I really wanted to see our local reservoir reach 100% capacity. It isn't very important. Where I live, the water comes from wells. However, we've been in a severe drought for a few years and it would be pleasant to see Lake Cachuma full again. This morning's Rainfall and Reservoir Summary says the lake is at 99.6% capacity. The seven-day weather report is predicting rain again on Saturday.
Arctic Weather
If you live in the Atlantic Northeast area of the USA, you experienced some really cold weather. I was born in Webster, Massachusetts. When I was four years old we moved to Mystic, Connecticut. When I was old enough to be on my own I lived for a while in Norwich and then in Pawcatuck.
I checked the weather in those areas. Overnight temperatures were expected to dip below zero. Daytime temps were well below freezing. I moved to California in 1975 to attend college here with the intention of never moving back to New England. I've lived on the Santa Barbara area for nearly 50 years. I have no regrets. I really disliked the cold.
Focaccia
Yesterday I felt like making bread again, but not an ordinary loaf. I made Focaccia.
It was good enough to eat, but I wished I hadn't put pieces of sun-dried tomatoes on top. They almost burned in the oven. I removed them and tossed them in the trash. The other ingredients were olive oil, fresh parsley, fresh rosemary and sea salt. Next time, I fold the tomatoes into the dough.
That reminded me of my Italian grandmother's Pepperoni Bread. She would put chunks of pepperoni and mozzarella cheese inside the dough before shaping it into loaves and baking them. I might do that next.
Wings
One of my friends is a really good cook. He says I taught him to cook, but I think he had the talent all along. I only taught him to balance flavors.
He called me to talk about the cost of chicken wings. They're outrageously expensive now, considering how little meat is on them.
One of the local stores sells turkey wings. We got to talking. What if I were to cook the wing pieces in a sous vide process, then finish them in the air fryer? It's worth an experiment, and they're less expensive than chicken wings. The next time I go shopping I'll look for turkey wings.
Wednesday 2023.2.1
Service Outage
As mentioned in Sunday's blog entry, Cox Cable scheduled an upgrade that will result in a service outage during part of the day on Wednesday, February 1st. Although this blog entry is dated 2/1, I prepared this to upload on the evening of January 31st, in the event that something goes wrong and I can't do an upload on the first.
My Kitchen Vlog
I received word this past weekend that the part I ordered, a bobbin cover, for the Singer Stylist Model 457 sewing machine was shipped from Ohio.
Here's an oddity. It must have been shipped by air. Originally, the part was scheduled to arrive toward the end of this week, Friday or Saturday. However, one day later it was here in Santa Barbara and out for delivery. I received the part on Monday afternoon.
The plan was to video the installation for My Kitchen Vlog. It won't require much. Although there is a little trick for getting the part into place, it only takes a few seconds. My guess is that a previous owner accidentally snapped the part off (it is held in place only by a thin piece of spring steel) and couldn't figure out how to put it back and therefore left it off. The machine can be used without the bobbin cover, but that's not the best way.
To fill the video out a little I planned to talk about my other machines. I have a total of five now. I'd like to give the Model 457 to someone, but I don't know of anyone who might want it. They would need to pick it up from my home, as it's too heavy to ship. It weighs about 26 pounds (11.8kg), the benefit of all those steel parts inside. By contrast, my plastic Brother sewing machine weighs less than half as much, only 12 pounds (5.4kg). Out of curiosity, I decided to weight my Singer Model 15- domestic sewing machine. It weighs 29 pounds (13.2kg).
I hadn't videoed a Kitchen Vlog since the middle of August. I didn't have much to talk about, other than my body's water works issue. How much can I talk about that? Sometimes I think I blog about it too much. And there I go again.
And so, during the day on Monday I set up my home to shoot another video. Setup includes organizing my kitchen — it is, after all, My Kitchen Vlog — and covering the windows with blackout fabric to control the lighting. Out of view toward the ceiling of my kitchen there are several studio lighting units. If all that seems a bit complicated, it sort of is. However, after shooting more than 600 videos for YouTube, I'm used to the routine.
Yes, that's correct. More than 600 videos. I've had several channels on YouTube, some of which are now gone. For a while I did a news channel on which I discussed the latest news stories. However, a news item usually goes cold after a day or two. Who wants to watch a news discussion from several weeks ago? By contrast, some videos I did for my Mobile Home Gourmet channel several years ago are still popular.
I also had a keto diet channel on which I talked about my progress. Those videos are gone, along with the weight loss.
Another Storm
During the beginning of this week storm number 15 passed through Southern California. As I always do, I looked at the Rainfall and Reservoir Summary report. Of the 14 stations included in the report, the area where I live was the only one to see zero rainfall. Not that it matters. Nearly all stations reported less than a quarter of an inch, with most seeing around a tenth of an inch.
The important number for me is the capacity percentage for the local reservoir. It currently stands at 99%. Our normal-to-date rainfall is 222%. The normal water-year rainfall is 113%, which means if no rain falls for the remainder of the water-year (September through August) we would still be above average.
Roundup or Brine?
What's your favorite herbicide for killing weeds? Roundup is popular, but I have a better one — brine. Yep, good ole salt water. It kills everything. Of course, because it kills all vegetation, a person might need to be careful where they use it.
My yard is all stone. With the recent rains, seeds that found there way into cracks or crevices started to sprout. I don't have a forest of weeds outside, but even a few look unsightly in my yard. I keep a bag of water softener salt crystals in my shed. Put some in a five-gallon bucket, add water, and wait. After a few days some of the salt will dissolve to make a strong brine. Pour that onto weeds and soon they'll shrivel up and go away. Add more water to the bucket and be ready for next time. I keep a lid on mine so that the water doesn't evaporate.