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Not Quite Ready: Mushroom Tomato Sauce, Kofta, Kohlrabi

I’ve currently got a tomato sauce cooking on the stove, as seen on the upper left. This will be used on ciabatta with deli pepperoni and muenster to make sandwiches for lunch. It contains one can of Trader Joe’s fire roasted crusted tomatos with chilis, a teaspoon of garlic, olive oil, oregano, salt, and pepper processed together. Sliced, raw white button mushrooms were then added and it is all being cooked together. As the mushrooms cook they should take on the flavor of the sauce, which will be nice.

Below this is some kohlrabi that has been pickled with dill, garlic, honey, salt, and vinegar. It will be put in the fridge sometime this evening. Plain kohlrabi tastes somewhat like a cross between cabbage and broccoli, but with the texture of apple. Raw it is very good and has a wonderful aftertaste; I hope it’s equally good (or better) once pickled.

The other photos are kofta that Danielle is making to take to a party tonight and cook on skewers over a BBQ. It contains two pounds of beef, 1/2 cup of parsley, one small onion, 1/4 tsp of allspice, salt, and pepper.

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Pancakes!

For the first time in as long as I can remember, which is likely 12 years or so, I’ve made pancakes. Danielle and I are eating three each, and there are three left over for hopeful eating tomorrow. While my pancakes were eaten with a fair amount of butter and grade B maple syrup, Danielle ate hers with some red current syrup that she made a few weeks ago using currents from the CSA.

They were made using this recipe from Allrecipes for ‘Good Old Fashioned Pancakes’ and here is a photo of them cooking, before being flipped for the first time. It also appears that this style of pancakes is also known as ‘Scotch drop scones’, ‘Scotch pancakes’, or just simply ‘drop scones’.

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Bus Pirate v2.go LEDs (and other Moblog Photos)

Today I finally got to poking around with the Hack A Day Bus Pirate v2.go. It’s a a nice little debugging tool which shows up as a 115.2k serial terminal via USB, and allows one to send and receive a bunch of different serial protocols to devices for testing. However, the LEDs on it are far, far, far brighter than they need to be. At my normally-lit desk in a normally-lit office, they are glaring. I’m going to consider replacing them next time I place an order from Mouser or Digi-Key.

Here’s some other recent moblog photos:

· Toadstools on the mountain bike trails at Bald Mountain South Unit.
· This morning’s coffee is made in a moka.
· Bloody nose pickings wiped on the mounting bracket for a urinal partition in one of the bathrooms at work.
· My sister’s dog Molly laying on the back porch at my parent’s house.
· Joy’s mom’s fruit Extra Easy Fruit Cobbler recipe.

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Tour de Suburbs

Having to run to the bank and wanting to go for a bike ride, I left my house with the intention of poking around the unmarked single track in River Bends for a while, then likely heading home. Instead I ended up visiting the following places:

· 5/3 Bank at 23 Mile and Schoenherr
· New (to me) single track in River Bends park.
· A car show in Downtown Utica, where I ended up talking with someone who described to me the town’s plans for a non-motorized path through the area. (Note that this is one of the few missing links in a complete regional trail system.)
· Erma’s for mint chocolate chip frozen custard.
· Through Clinton River Park and the (very muddy) single track to Dodge Park and around Sterlingfest.
· Down 16 Mile / Metro Parkway to Metro Beach and back.
· Along Schoenherr and Hayes to Sherwood Brewing Company where I had two pints (Green Rover IPA and Mistress Jades Hemp Ale) and a small pizza. Danielle met me there and we split a very large order of cheese bread.
· Finally, back home.

Total was 55.73 miles, which is definitely a nice jaunt for a Saturday afternoon. There’s also something which feels very civilized about being able to bike to a pub for a pint, or more specifically in this case, stop off at the pub on the way back from a ride for a couple pints and some good food.

Hmm. It seems that I’ve made it back just before some rain is due to hit. I guess it’s time for a shower and a shave, and time to throw the bike clothes in the wash. All of today’s sweat has made them quite stiff.

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“Home Made” White Bread

If everything goes as planned, this will turn into a loaf of white bread which I can eat part of for breakfast tomorrow. This white bread recipe, from nuxx.net details everything needed for this simple bread machine white bread; water, flour, sugar, salt, butter, and yeast. I’d attempted to make some earlier this week, but I only had 2/3 of the required amount of yeast and bread flour. Leaving out the rest of the yeast and substituting plain white flour resulted in a smaller, denser, loaf of bread which while not terrible just didn’t sit very well with me. This alternate loaf has been cubed and set out to dry for crouton-making.

I’d originally intended this loaf to be ready at about 7am, but I inadvertently hit the start button on the bread maker instead of timer, immediately beginning the mixing process. Since the ingredients need to stay separated and layered until the whole baking process is about to begin, I had no choice but to let it go. Thus, the bread will be ready about 4am. Oh well. Three hour old bread isn’t exactly a tragedy.

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New Bridge at Bald Mountain North Unit

Needing to clear my head and relax a bit after work, I headed out to Bald Mountain North Unit and Addison Oaks for some bike riding. One lap of each, a bit of the connecting dirt road, and a quick jaunt up to Lake Orion to watch the ducks in the park while eating some fruit/nut mix added up to just over 25 miles.

One really nice surprise in Bald Moutain was this brand new bridge over a previously muddy spot, which is located just after the Conklin Road entrance. That image there (and above) is looking back at it, after crossing over. Here is how it looks as you approach it. I’m not sure who did it, but I suspect one of the Team MARVIN (currently unemployed) MMBA members who have been doing loads of wonderful summer trail maintenance all throughout the area.

This ride, and last night at Stony Creek with the usual group, was also a chance to try out the new fork on trails that I know well. Thus far I’m really, really happy with the fork. In short, hard bumps don’t feel as severe, my front wheel sticks more solidly to the ground, and it’s noticeably lighter.

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Fifth Third Bank’s Payday Loan Business (aka Early Access)

Today when signing into Fifth Third’s website to check my bank account, I saw a link which would allow me to sign up for a new service called Early Access. Not knowing what this is I clicked on the link, only to see that Early Access is nothing more than easy-to-use payday advance lending. More information is available about it on this page, but I think it’s particularly telling that the bank specifically states in the disclosures section that:

Fifth Third Early Access is an expensive form of credit and should only be used in situations where you need funds quickly and you do not have access to less expensive forms of credit.

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Fox 32 F100 RLC on 2008 Specialized Rockhopper M4 Frame

While Danielle was off with two of the other people on her Breast Cancer 3-Day team walking ~16 miles, I spent most of Sunday working on my bike. After the very muddy Tree Farm Relay the day before my bike needed to be washed, and I had a new fork to fit.

For the first time I actually disassembled the entire bike, removing everything except for the bottom bracket, front derailleur, and derailleur hanger. Everything was then thoroughly cleaned, greased as needed, and put back together. At the same time as this a Cane Creek S-3 headset and the new-to-me Fox 32 F100 RLC fork were installed.

The undamaged Avid Clean Sweep G2 rotor (from leftover from the replacement of the brakes post-comically bad ride) was also fitted to the front in place of the roundagon that came with the BB7 and I’d fitted in July of last year. I’ve heard that they tend to stop better than the smoother roundagons, and after some brake clogging problems during the race, I figure it’s worth trying.

The steerer tube on the new fork was just a little bit longer than my old one, but I figured it was best to leave it be and just throw a spacer on top of the stem. As seen here it’s really not too bad looking, even with the particularly tall Niner YAWYD stem cap. I’m not sure I care for the carbon fiber look either, but I don’t think it’s terribly noticeable. Still, I can only hope that in a few years the Asian manufactures will do the world a favor and start using opaque epoxies when working with CF.

The shifter cables were replaced, time was spent adjusting the fork to both factory defaults and a reasonable sag for my weight (100psi, for reference), and a few test rides around the neighborhood were taken. Now to get out and do some single track riding and test it out. Hopefully this will happen tomorrow.

Here’s all of the pictures taken of my bike today, in case you want to see how it now looks:

· My bike, a once-was 2008 Specialized Rockhopper Disc, after being cleaned up and fitted with a 2008 Fox RLC fork and Cane Creek S3 headset. (Note the terrible crank / downtube positioning. This is awful composition.)
· Detail of the Cane Creek S3 headset and carbon fiber spacers. Since the steerer tube is a bit long and I didn’t want to cut it, the top cap sticks up a bit.
· 2008 Fox 32 F100 RLC fork and Cane Creek S3 headset installed on my 2008 Rockhopper Disc.
· Clean rear drivetrain after disassembly and chain replacement. The mud from the Tree Farm Relay required that everything receive particular attention.

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The Jan & Linda Bust Trust Shirts

Danielle is doing the Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk in a few weeks, and we’re just now finalizing the t-shirt designs. If any of you are interested, we’re now taking orders for the shirts, at $25/each. I apologize for the short notice, but orders need to be received by tomorrow evening; Tuesday, July 28th, 2009. There is a bit of a lead time required for these shirts, and we’ve pushed it to the last minute.

The logo up top there is the final front design, done by Kristi / Pixel Fairy Design. The back will be printed with the names and logos of the sponsors. The shirts will be white, American made and printed athletic / workout type shirts, printed with a dye sublimation process by Voler, one of the best cycling jersey companies in the world. This means that not only will the shirts be breathable and comfortable for working out in, they will also last for quite a while.

Sizing information for the shirts themselves is available here on the sizing tab. To order shirts, please email me at c0nsumer@nuxx.net with the size and quantities desired. For payment we can either handle it as the shirts are delivered in person, or via Google Checkout or PayPal.

If you need or want the shirts shipped, please let also let me know where to send them. I’ll be tacking on a single $5 fee to each to-be-shipped order for Priority Mail postage, but this should be good for however many shirts that you order. This means that one shirt shipped will be $30, but three shipped will only be $80.

Thanks, everyone!

(If you’d like to visit Danielle’s 3-Day site itself, where you can make a donation via credit card, it’s here: danielle3day.nuxx.net.)

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