My wife loves me, kinda.

So, I’m having a math-related panic attack here as I try to study for a mid-term I have in Calculus II tomorrow, and my wife is being very understanding and trying to help and take care of me and so forth.  I took a Klonopin, and she walked the dog and ordered dinner.  When the sushi got here, I went to put the dog away in order to avoid a sushitastrophe.  When I got back, she says, “I got spoons,” and I think, “Oh, she’s taking such good care of me.”  I sit down and see a bottle of beer on the table in front of me, and I say, “Aw, you got me a beer.”  “No, Mr. Klonopin, I got ME a beer.”

Such a loving spouse.

Cooking geeks, behold!

So, this weekend I decided that I wanted to try my hand at a home-baked loaf of bread. We got some flour and yeast and, already having the other two ingredients on hand – water and salt – forged ahead with my plan.  Many thanks to my friend Dave who, as a professional cook, had some sage advice about making bread.  He gave me a really simple recipe to try, and I did so.  The bread, while EXTREMELY crusty (too much steam in the initial stage), was also extremely tasty.  I had sort of forgotten how much I really like super-fresh homemade bread.  Also, I really liked making it.

I saved half of the dough from this batch in the fridge to bake later, which I did last night, and which also turned out remarkably tasty.  I still have some of that bread left tonight, so, instead of making a freash batch of dough tonight, I am in stead trying my hand at (Dun dun DUUUNNN!!!) a preferment.  This is where you mix up some flour, water, and a little yeast ahead of time and let it fizzle and bubble and soak together.  The intention is to give your bread a more complex flavor and a somewhat longer shelf life, though I’m not sure how this latter is achieved.

Instrumental in my learning even this much were the lessons over at The Fresh Loaf, which I intend to read more of and experiment with unashamedly in the kitchen

So, tomorrow I will mix up another batch of dough and bake some more bread.  This time, my intention is to use about 1/3 whole wheat flour, and to add a little molasses to enhance the flavor of the whole wheat.  I put the whole wheat flour in the preferment, thinking that if any flavors were going to be enhanced it should be that of the flour with more flavor.  Make sense?  I’m totally excited!

In other cooking and homesy news, since it is going to be super cold tonight (well, cold for Florida) I brought my outside plants indoors, including the earthbox.  The last time it froze, while we were in Mexico in January, almost all of my tomato plants died and the larger of my basil plants was mortally wounded and died just this past week.  Having a box full of dirt in a house full of cats presents an unexpected challenge.  There is now dirt all over the floor and a severely chastised cat under the table in the living room.  I’ve moved my fragile basil plants to a higher place where I hope they’ll be less attractive to inquisitive cat feet.  Compounding matters somewhat I can’t seem to locate our broom and so the dirt remains on the floor.

The rest of the night is for studying math and watching the wife play Dante’s Inferno.  And maybe checking on my preferment somewhat obsessively.

Make cable art out of cable tangles

Okay, so this is a brilliant idea that I can’t believe nobody had thought of yet.

Cable Art

Nixie Tubes!

Okay, I think everyone who has ever seen them will agree that nixie tubes are really cool looking.  Up until now they have been difficult to work with – when you can find them – due to their high voltage power needs.  The lovely folks at ArduiNIX.com have solved that problem for anyone interested in making something with nixies.  Their new product, the ArduiNIX Arduino shield, makes using up to eight nixie tubes as easy as programming an Arduino microcontroller.

ArduiNIX Arduino shield

The shield fits over the stock Arduino, takes signals from the microcontroller, and drives the nixie tubes with its own on-board high-voltage power supply.  I can’t wait to figure out a way to use this in some kind of project!  Maybe a repeater for a multimeter display or just an all-purpose numerical display that takes input from a computer – temperature, caller ID… endless possibilities!

Accomplished cat!

So, today started out pretty normal for a Sunday, in which the wife and I got up and ran to a drive-thru at the last minute to grab breakfast and then drove around town a little just sort of enjoying the day and planning things out and digesting.  We went to Home Depot and Target for a couple things – actually we went to Target twice since we forgot something – and then headed home.

At this point, the wife’s mood took a sudden and unexpected downturn and she became Grouchy.  We sat around the house for a little while wondering if it would pass and trying to decide if we would actually get anything done today until a friend called and asked if I was busy.  So, M stayed home and I went and hung out with my friend.  He has just moved into a new house and the previous tenant had left some things around that he thought I might want.  One is a little metal toolbox, which, yeah, whatever, and the other is a very small, almost desktop-sized bandsaw.  It’s usually used for cutting glass for stained glass work, and has a diamond band on it now, but I can totally use it to cut circuit board, metal, wood, plastic…  Look out, world!  This guy’s got a bandsaw!

So anyway, I came home and the wife and I sat around some more until we both realized we weren’t interested in cooking and went out for Thai food.  After dinner we drove around some more and found some good trash.  Another HP Pavilion CPU for me, as though I need another trash computer, and something I think we will find a good home for in our mega-eclectic living room: an old Mini-Bar mini fridge.  That took us circling the block *several* times before we even figured out what it was, and then another turn about the block to decide if we wanted it.  Fortunately by the time we were starting to get funny looks from the neighbors we had decided that it must be ours, and it is now sitting in my truck awaiting its place of honor.

Anyway, we came home, farted around on the internet some, then realized that we needed to brine a turkey that the wife is cooking for her work Thanksgiving thing.  We did that, and then I fixed our Ikea loveseat, the frame of which had started to come un-stapled.  See, the framing pieces of this couch are basically held together with wire brads, and the excessive sitting we have been doing on it had pulled the main cross piece away from its brads and had the whole couch looking very lopsided.  So, some wood screws and some metal angle brackets and it’s back, almost as good as new.  Next time we buy one of these I am going to go ahead and start out by putting the brackets on before the couch actually breaks, but hindsight is 20/20 and all.

Finally (I know, right?) I planted a basil sprig that I had been soaking in the hopes of drawing some roots out.  A couple days ago I swear I looked at it and there was nothing, but today I checked it out and there were a bunch of tendrils 4-5 inches long.  Planting that got me wanting to do a bunch of other stuff, so I tended to my tomato plants – which are about ready to be planted in their own container, and my peppers – which are about ready to get their temporary transplant, and the cucumber seeds I had been starting with damp paper towels.  These last had not actually started, so they went into some actual dirt and to hell with hydroponics and whatnot.  If history stays to course they’ll sprout in a few weeks, just as I’m starting to despair of them sprouting at all.  Note to self: time to make some more self-watering containers.  Like, two or three more.

All in all, I think it has been a very successful day, even if we didn’t get the bedroom cleaned up like we had goddamn meant to.  Neither of us wanted to do that anyway, really.

Okay, this is hot…

The thought of even thinking about buying this get me serious geek wood.  Of course, I would have to also buy a server rack, but hey, I kind of want one of those too…

Short stack of scopes

Why yes, I’ve been cruising ebay for oscilloscopes.  Why do you ask?

My peppers are sprouting!

I’m sure you all remember the tomato sprouts I managed to coax out of a couple half-rotten grape tomatoes. Well, those sprouts are doing very well and have been transplanted into three larger containers (2-liter soda bottles cut in half).  In addition the the tomatoes, I have also planted some peppers that a co-worker gave me that went bad before we could use them and, just like the tomatoes, just when I was starting to worry that they weren’t going to sprout, they’re totally sprouting.

Peppers sprouting!

I’m so stoked to be growing these things again!  I’ve got some cucumber seeds waiting to be started sprouting now, and so I may be getting a little ahead of myself, but I’m so stoked!  Yay, plants!

Finally, here is a picture of my little tomato plants growing like crazy, fruit-bearing weeds, straining towards the light:

Little tomato plants!

TED Talks are truly amazing

This TED Talk really resonated with me.  It’s totally amazing how Sir Ken Robinson just cuts straight to the heart of the fact of the matter and hits the bullseye.  Hits it HARD.  It especially resonates with me since I’m in school right now and experiencing the hardship of the math/science hierarchy.  Amazing.

Yeah, but it sounds like garbage…

I’m trying to decide if I’m interested in circuit bending or not. Like, academically it’s an interesting process of experimentation, but honestly I don’t know if I would be interested in actually making circuit bent “music”. I use the “sarcasm quotes” because when it comes down to it, circuit bent performances are a lot like improvisational jazz, only you don’t have to know how to play an instrument. You basically get up there, noodle around on your noisemaker for a while, and then you bow, say, “Thank you, Detroit!” and go home feeling like a rockstar. I just don’t know if my old-person ears would be able to stand that much “experimental discordia” also known as “auditory garbage” or “noise pollution”. It’s such an interesting field of experimentation, though, I just don’t know if I’m cut out to be that cutting edge.

Things I don’t do often enough.

I have been thinking about how much there is that I want to do, and how little time I have to do it, and it has resulted in my realization that, honestly, there are a LOT of things that I want to do.  There really just isn’t enough time to do all this stuff.  But, still, these are things that I wish I did more often, in no particular order.

Play guitar, listen to new music, take pictures, write, build things, cook new things, experiment, read, keep promises to myself, stay in touch with my friends, look on the bright side, be prepared, save money, follow through, eat better, work out, not procrastinate, be creative every day, live for today.

Anyway, that.  And this, by Matt Jones.

Get Excited And Make Things