Wherein I fly like a bird

On Sunday I was minding my own business, playing with my computer. I get a phone call from Nick: “Carolyn’s sick, and I’ve already made plans to go flying with Ryan. You want to go instead? Meet me in 15 minutes.” Ryan is a coworker who recently acquired a pilot’s license.

I like to think of myself as a spontaneous person, and dropping what I was doing to go flying definitely fit the bill. I met Nick, we met Ryan, and we got in the plane. It’s a little Cessna, with 4 seats. Not the most comfortable of accommodations, but I was only paying $25 for the hour, so I shouldn’t have gotten first class treatment.

It was fun going through the preflight, putting on the headphones, listening to the airplane jargon, etc. Takeoff was fun, too. And then we were in the air, and I was trusting my life to a guy who had just gotten his pilot’s license and was flying a plane in good shape, but whose coincidence with a bird could render certain essential parts of the vehicle inoperable.

At 6000 feet I had better cell phone reception than I ever get in my apartment complex. The air was clear, the wind light, the sun bright, and the experience thrilling. After using Google Maps, it’s impossible to lose your bearings in the air, and I was able to pick out all kinds of landmarks. Then we did some fun “maneuvers” that included 60 degree banked turns at almost 2Gs. Without warning Ryan cut the throttle and dropped us a few hundred feet, rendering us temporarily weightless. The second time we had advanced notice and enjoyed it more. Nick got to fly a little bit. I was in the back seat, so I couldn’t but I didn’t mind. We flew really close to some windmills and had some turbulence, but otherwise it was a really good flight.

After exactly an hour we had a smooth landing. Flying is definitely fun, and I’ll be sure to get Ryan to take me up again.

Continuation of my birthday

My birthday was really the 9th, but it just made more sense to celebrate it on a friday. It turned out that my sister Betsy was travelling through town the same day and needed a place to stay. Being the big brotherly sort, I offered my place. While the dinner party was wrapping up, I got a call from her, saying she was there. I hurried across town to meet her and was greeted not only by my sister and her friend (which I expected), but also by her friend’s very big dog (which I did not expect). Of course, my sister said “I should have told you. It’s ok if he stays here, right?.” Yes, you should have told me. No it’s not ok. If I got caught with the dog in the apartment I could get in a lot of trouble. It was not a good start. We decided to go to the clubs. We went, we drank a little, we danced a bunch, it was mostly fun. Betsy has taken up casual smoking, and the two girls went to my car (because that’s where they had left the cigarettes) and ended up smoking in my car (because that’s the kind of thing people who show up with unannounced dogs do).

On a tangent, a girl told me I was a really good dancer. I thanked her. The second time, I introduced myself. We continued to dance nearby, and when I saw the ring on her finger, I was disappointed, but not completely discouraged. I asked, and she said “no no no,” she wasn’t married. When it was time to leave, I said I was leaving but I’d like to call her some time. She said she couldn’t because she had a boyfriend (who wasn’t there). I’m going to stop asking. There are way too many boyfriends and husbands around here. What really bugs me is why she didn’t say so when I asked about the ring.

Anyway, on the way home, I got pulled over by the cops. It wasn’t surprising, considering I saw no less than 6 on the way home. He pulled me over for not using my turn signal long enough before changing lanes and because the light was out on my back license plate. These are not good reasons to pull someone over. These are petty reasons to pull someone over because you want to find out if they’re drunk. Yes, officer, I had a couple drinks a few hours ago, and I’ve danced it all off. Yes, you can test me. Yes, that’s my new address. It says so on the back of my license and I was just at the DMV last month to change it. He had nothing on me, and I knew it.

Finally get home and head to bed. But the girls aren’t ready to sleep. They open my bedroom door, and in comes the dog with a big muddy ball to drop on my sheets. So we all go out to the hot tub (closed after 10pm and it was 2am). The dog wants to bark at anything that moves.

Bed at 3. Wake up at 9 and I’m ready to go. Cook some breakfast, take the girls to a park, take them out to lunch with Nick and Carolyn, and send them on their way.

Long friday.

My little office toys

Today I got a birthday present from a coworker. It’s a cute little Don Quixote SpongeBob Squarepants plastic toy from Burger King. He goes well with my other office toy; a stuffed Taco Bell dog. I put the little Don on top of the dog so he’s riding it. I think it’s a funny looking combination, and it’s way too easy to draw deep meaning from it. It makes perfect sense that SpongeBob is riding the dog because it fits the Don Quixote theme perfectly. Then there’s something to be said about my Burger King toy riding my Taco Bell toy. If Wendy’s made a windmill, I’d be able to complete my bizarre scene.

Making a great dinner

Last night I made a decent dinner. Decent may be an understatement, but I’ll let you decide. Wild sockeye salmon in garlic butter, sauteed mushrooms (also in garlic butter), asparagus, a baked red potato, diced tomatoes in a spicy vinaigrette, and accompanied by sourdough french bread and chai tea. It was actually to my benefit this time to have a small kitchen because I was cooking so fast that having pieces further apart would have given me more trouble. I even had my timing correct so that all of the dishes were ready at roughly the same time, and believe me, knowing when to start the water boiling so that it’ll be boiling 3 minutes before the salmon is done is as much an art as it is a science. The neat thing was that I was able to do all the prep work as I was cooking, so from start to finish was just about 15 minutes.

Sometimes quick dinners turn out very well. The other night I combined the two ingredients in my fridge that were not condiments. My cod and celery combination actually turned out to be a spectacular dish. Sometimes I make a horrible mistake; do not ruin salmon with barbeque sauce. But those are opportunities to learn.

If there’s one thing I learned from Iron Chef, it’s that ingredients are the building blocks with which gustatory art is created, and creativity and willingness to match ingredients, coupled with a foundation of knowledge about the indredient and what it can and cannot do, are an extremely important set of skills in cooking. I didn’t learn to cook from Iron Chef. Who uses white truffles or foie gras regularly anyway? No, their knowledge of exotic ingredients is useless to me. What I learned is how to use timing, how to use smells, how to think about the ingredients, and how to come up with creative solutions for new dishes.

That last one wasn’t fair

As an inaugural post, that one was not very good. I apologize for the wanton recklessness with my thoughts, but frankly, I had just eaten and it was on my mind. To you, dear reader, I amend a second post as a token of my sympathy for having to endure a dismal beginning.

So I begin again it traditional blog fashion; with a complaint about the opposite sex.

I am not often one to be discouraged easily, and after my concerted efforts recently, I could hardly say that my discouragement was easily attained. In short, the club scene is frustrating. First example:

I’m dancing away in one of the Tri-Cities 3 clubs, and see a very attractive girl dancing. For a while I do some reconnaissance, casually watching for a guy, or some other indication of unavailability. After determining the coast clear with a slight possibility of boyfriend in the corner, and after establishing myself by clearing a circle and breakdancing to Michael Jackson, I make my approach. I smile, she smiles back. I say hi, she says hi back. I say “are you here with someone?” and she proceeds to take a dull spoon from her front pocket and carve a hole in my intestines with the reply “yeah, my husband. I’m married” I congratulate her and continue to dance for a bit, trying to maintain my cool before I slink off to nurse my wound. Off to a bad start indeed.

The next attempt seemed easier. A woman standing against the wall nursing a drink looks extremely miserable. I approach and say hi, making friendly chatter, asking questions, avoiding awkward silences. Out of nowhere, she says “Just so you know, my boyfriend’s standing over there.” Well that’s wonderful. Strike two.

The third time took place over the course of two weeks. On the first week, I was approached while dancing, which was nice. We danced close briefly, then I moved away and danced alone in a great flourish of stupidity. After realizing my mistake I made an effort to recover and may have even ended up better off because of the mistake. We danced a few times, and she was fun. The next week she was there again. I approached her and said “hi, we danced earlier.” “I just got here” she said. “No, last week. You were wearing a salmon shirt and we danced a few times.” “Oh, yeah! Bob, right?” Yes, this was a good sign. And then… “I can’t dance with you anymore. I’m engaged now!”

Sad stories, yes, but not without their morals. 1.) ALWAYS look for a ring. 2.) You will get turned down. Pick yourself back up and move on. 3.) Clubs might not really be the right place to meet people.

There, dear reader. I hope I have sated your thirst for personal information.

Inaugural Post 2

As I was making dinner tonight, I think I came across a marine biology discovery. Yes, it sounds odd, and your furrowed eyebrows are completely valid. Here’s what happened:

I was making pasta. Mostaccioli, to be exact. Essentially, it’s the same thing as penne, which is a fancy name for round-tube-pasta. This is an important detail. I got the water boiling, then poured my pasta in. I stirred it once or twice to make sure the pasta wasn’t going to stick on the bottom and burn. Then I left for a while. When I returned, the pasta were making an effort to align themselves vertically. They didn’t all express this alignment, but there were enough that one could easily notice a general trend. Perhaps this is not unusual of your round-tube-pastas like rigatone (they’re all round-tube-pastas, why can’t they all have the same name?), but it seemed odd to me.

Naturally I sought an explanation for this behavior. My first theory was that air bubbles sought to travel from the bottom of the pan to the top of the pan so the air bubbles would over time push the pasta into an arrangement that would facilitate the most efficient transfer. My second theory relied on the fact that the pasta were expanding and alignment was a way to optimize the space in a pot of limited size.

I think my first idea was best, though, and watching the little tubes wave about reminded me of a coral reef. Perhaps in reefs things align themselves according to flow of gas bubbles.

Perhaps I’m reading into it too much. Anyway, it was good, aligned or not.

Haystacks

  • 1 tbsp peanut butter
  • 3 oz chow mein noodles (just a bunch of noodles. you adjust the amount as you mix.)
  • 16oz package of butterscotch chips.

Melt and mix the pb and butterscotch chips on medium low heat. Remove from heat. Add a bunch of the noodles. adjust recipe to taste. Drop spoonfulls of haystacks onto a cookie sheet and cool. Try to make them bite size, which can be fairly difficult.

 

Lemon Squares

350* 20 minutes

  • Crust:
    • 1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
    • 1/2 cup butter
    • 1/4 cup confectioner’s (powdered) sugar
  • Topping
    • 2 eggs
    • 1 cup granulated sugar
    • 1/2 tsp baking powder
    • 1/4 tsp salt
    • 2 tbsp lemon juice

Blend crust ingredients thoroughly. Press evenly in 8x8x2 square pan and bake for 20 minutes. Beat rest of ingredients together. Pour over crust and bake 20-25 minutes more. Do not overbake. The filling puffs during baking but flattens when cooled. When cooled, dust with confectioner’s sugar.

 

Chocolate Chip Cookies

375* 8-10 minutes

  • Mix together
    • 2 1/4 cups unsifted all-purpose flour
    • 1 tsp baking soda
    • 1 tsp salt
  • In a separate bowl:
    • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
    • 3/4 cup brown sugar packed
    • 2 eggs
    • 1 tsp vanilla
    • 1 cup butter, softened
    • 1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
    • 2 cups (12 oz) semi-sweet chocolate chips

Mix gradually mix the two together and drop rounded spoonfulls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

 

Rice Crispy Treats

  • 1/3 cup butter
  • 45 marshmallows
  • 5 1/2 cups rice crispy cereal.

In a large saucepan, over low heat, melt butter and marshmallows, stirring until melted. Remove from heat. Stir in rice crispy cereal. Using a buttered spatula, press mixture into a buttered 13×9 pan. cool.