happy birthday - here's your disasters!

Today is my 44th birthday and we had sun, hail, a tornado, and now massive flooding.

see sewer lid popped off lower left corner of the pic near the white truck

And my Aunt Mary sent me the best birthday card:

Here's the video of the car:

work, walk, and lube

My new swamp cooler has finally been installed! Hooray! And as soon as the rain from the storm we had dries up I will take a picture of it. I also had new vents installed inside my house, but am going to have to do some repainting and dry wall patching because they're slightly smaller than the vents I used to have.

I also got my treadmill fixed today (for free!). The incline wasn't working. The guy who came to fix it is as enthusiastic about treadmills as I am and told me about all these things I could do to make my treadmill better. He also put in a work order to get me a new motor because my existing one ticks (it's a slight annoyance, but why not get a new motor, especially since it's free and an upgrade to the one I have).

he seemed surprised at the amount of mileage on my treadmill and dubious that it was just me using it so I showed him my fitbit status in the colorado group - my goal is to be in the top 5 by June

He also said "oh, you've got the best lube! and you got the wand!" Haha. I ordered a product called lube n walk for my treadmill (you have to put lube under the belt - I do this once a week). It's pretty cool, you put the lube on this wand contraption thing, slide it under the treadmill belt, and slide it down the length of the belt. One side lubricates the deck and the other side wipes dirt off the underside of the belt. I like killing two birds with one stone. He told me the lube that normally normally comes with treadmills isn't as good as what I have and is so thick it can cause the belt to stick to the deck which is exactly what the lube is supposed to present.

He said "I have to give you this tube of lube but you can throw it away when I leave." At every service call he has to give clients the crap lube that comes with the treadmill. Maybe that's a way for the company to get your belt to wear out so they make more money, I don't know.

And, he said it was "excessive" to vacuum out the motor compartment every week. What ever.

Now the only thing I have left to fix is my sprinkler. The overflow valve is leaking. That's getting done next week. I was going to try to fix it myself but am afraid I might break it and that would be an even more costly repair so fuck it, I hired a professional. I did research how to fix it and came across this lovely instruction step. I keep repeating it to myself for reasons unknown to me:

yes, let's place a bonnet on the poppet and load it on a rocket

Finally, Jess sent me this pic from the jazz festival. At first I thought it was because it showed the food tent, and she was like "no, look, there's you slaving away at the stove!" Fucking asperger's. I didn't even realize I was in the picture until she pointed me out.

note the paper towels and you can almost see the sanitizing spray sitting RIGHT behind me - I should have recognized myself because of that...

buckets, bruises, best brazilian street food

I woke up at 530 on Saturday morning since I had to be ready to go by 645 to help Jessica and Edglas set up their brazilian street food tent at the 5 points jazz fest. I probably could have slept until 6 but I was worried about how the jazz fest would go. We had staged food and other stuff at my house with the plan of moving it in increments to the jazz fest since it was so close to my house so I felt weirdly responsible for the jazz fest being a success.

Welton street was blocked off but they let vendors in at 7 for set up. I was worried because I didn't have an official pass like Jessica did and she was like "when they see your car (stuffed with a tent, tables, coolers, a fryer, etc.) I'm pretty sure they'll let you in."

It turns out we were the very first vendor to arrive, and we were so early the location of our tent had not been identified yet. Niecy, who was in charge, gave us a spot right in front of one of the jazz venues. This was great for Jessica because it brought people by the food tent. It was great for me because the bands that played there were amazing and I got to listen to their music the whole day.

I initially thought Jess would limit my participation to running shrimp and chicken and whatever else was needed from my house to the food tent. But after we got set up she happily decided to keep me around. Literally at the opening of the fest (actually, the fest officially started at 11, we got our first order at 10:58) we were mobbed and not even the brief rain we had around 630 (I think it was 630, I was too busy to check my watch) made people leave the line.

this is the line at one of the slower periods of the day - it goes all the way back to that guy in the blue shirt where the red arrow is

 One of the things I had to do was to walk huge (think the buckets at home depot) buckets of dough from my house to the festival. The buckets were full of wet dough, i.e. REALLY FUCKING HEAVY. We had sort of made friends with the guys that were running the power because Edglas had to start cooking at 930 and at 920 we still didn't have power (they got it on at 935). So as I was walking empty buckets from the festival and full buckets back from my house the power guys, who were stationed at the entrance to the festival, would call out "hey, it's the bucket lady!" followed by some other comment like "I hope there's chitlins in that bucket!", "nothin sadder than the bucket lady with an empty bucket!", "check it out! bucket in a backpack!" (my arms were so bruised from carrying the buckets that around 2 pm I had to put them in my expedition back pack because I literally couldn't hold them anymore), "aw, bucket lady's got a small bucket!" (said as if I was carrying a puppy - I was carrying a small bucket full of vatapa) and then, at the end of the night, as I was bringing two cooler back to my garage "bucket lady's got two coolers! over achiever!"

Jess' sister showed up at 1045 and they made plans on how the line was going to work (Jess to take orders, sister to make orders, Edglas cooking, me cleaning and running food to the fest from my house). That all went to shit as soon as we were mobbed by people (around 11:05). Jess was like "I need you to cook!" and I was like "I don't even know how to turn on a propane stove!" In any case I ended up cooking the shrimp and the chicken (I have never cooked either before) as well as helping Edglas with the dough for the acaraje.

Edglas making black eyed pea dough fritters - the bread for the acaraje - that fryer is super hot - I helped by beating the dough with a whisk and then holding the tray when he removed the dough from the fryer - at first he would only put a few of the fritters on the tray before telling me to set it down - eventually he figured out my arms are stronger than they look - fucking twig arms

once beaten, with the whisk seen in the bowl, he rolls the dough on a big wooden spoon before dropping it in the fryer

I started out cooking chicken - I was worried about the shrimp because I can't even touch them without having an allergic reaction

I finally took on the shrimp and managed to make it without fucking it up OR having an allergic reaction

 The funniest thing that happened to me at the jazz fest was when a guy came up to me and said "I have been watching you hustle for the past 45 minutes. I am really impressed by the way you run your kitchen (I was running back and forth between my cooking station and Edglas' cooking station while also cleaning and sanitize spraying everything in sight and, maybe, this guy figured that meant I was in charge????). I'd like to offer you a job in my restaurant as a cook."

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! I can't cook ANYTHING!!!! Except, now, shrimp and chicken.

Anyway, we literally were slammed from open to close. When we had 10 minutes of rain we had to close down the cooking stations and were telling people in line that it would be a 20 minute wait for food after the rain stopped (obviously, can't have hot cooking oil mixed with water). It didn't matter. People waited.

One of the stranger things that happened yesterday...Jess had a best friend (from the age of 4) in Carbondale, who died at the age of 23. Yesterday the friend's mother, who was visiting someone in Denver, decided to go to the jazz fest and came to our tent. She didn't know that Jess was starting a business or that she was going to be at the jazz fest, it was a total coincidence. Nice reunion for the two of them.

Anyway, we busted our asses until 8 o'clock and then began the onerous process of breaking down the tent and moving everything back to my garage. We finally finished at 930. I hadn't eaten anything all day but wasn't hungry at all. And I had thought I would be tired but was so wired up from the festival that I managed to stay awake long enough to watch a movie. According to my fitbit, I walked 14 miles yesterday.

Today Jess and Edglas came over to pick up their stuff. They brought me this:

Edglas picked out this orchid because he said it looked brazilian. Jess said she was going to give me cut flowers but Edglas insisted on the orchid. I hope I don't kill it because it's so beautiful.

And Edglas paid Jess and I a huge compliment. He said he never met two stronger (he meant in the physical sense) women. Ha. I was like "so don't judge my arms because they're skinny!" and he laughed.

They also gave me this card:

I'm going to try to help them at their next event. Maybe my cooking skills will get better. And if you've never been, and you love jazz, food, and people watching, I highly recommend the five points jazz fest.

There's other stories about what happened, but my arms are like noodles right now and that's all I can write...

the biggest frying pan ever (and my poison freezer)

Last night Jess and her husband dropped off some stuff for the jazz fest so that they don't have to worry about hauling it all in their car saturday morning. One of the things they're storing here is their special frying pan (and guess who gets to clean it for saturday...I'm hoping ME! I've never cleaned a big frying pan before).

this pan could make the most bacon ever - I put mine next to it for scale - and yes, I finally made an appointment to get my new swamp cooler installed so that box will be out of the garage in a week

We packed everything in my garage and then went into my house so we could take measurements to determine how much stuff would fit into my refrigerator / freezer.

This morning they came by again to drop off some frozen shrimp and chicken. My freezer is now LITERALLY packed with food I can't (shrimp) or won't (chicken - chickens roll around in their own feces so no, I'm not going to eat one) eat.

Jess d asked "does it feel weird to actually have food in your refrigerator?"

On Friday they're dropping off the batter and the other half of my refrigerator will look like the freezer. And Saturday I promised (and you know, I am really NOT a morning person) to be ready at 645 am to help take everything over to the jazz fest. And I'm going to help at their booth, though I'm not sure what I will do. Jess wondered if I was still against trying to cook and I told her that having food in my house and getting up early on saturday were enough changes for one week.

If you are interested in trying some brazilian street food now's your chance! The sandwich they make, acaraje, is pronounced AH cah rah tay.

on stalkers and their impact

A friend of mine was telling me Friday night about a stalker who has been bothering her 20 something daughter. He hasn't done anything violent (yet) but has been doing things like breaking into her house, breaking into her car (he  threatened to put sugar in her gas tank and the next day she found the gas tank ripped open - he did not put any sugar in that she is aware of), tailgating her on the road, calling and facebooking her incessantly, and, when she blocked him from her phone and facebook, sending emails to my friend.

The daughter has called the police but all they will do is file a report. The stalker's parents, who are friends with my friend, called her and asked why her daughter was filing police reports against their son! They have had behavior problems in the past with their son but are in total denial. They also seem to be blaming the daughter as if she is somehow doing something to this kid to make him act like a total asshole. The daughter is wondering if she did do something to set this guy off.

I was reminded of an experience I had in the past with a work colleague who stalked me, showing up at the JHU campus at 10 PM as my class was letting out and following me to my car, and on numerous occasions threatening me physically in meetings (he was once restrained from punching me and another time told me in front of other colleagues that he knew where I lived and was going to put a bullet in my head). Why did this colleague feel so negatively toward me? Because I was brought in to take over his job because he apparently had "nerve problems" and was on so much medication (oxycontin, back in the day when it was hardly prescribed) that he couldn't function at work. At the meeting where he had to be restrained I had merely asked him if he had any documentation from the customer that I could look at.

And yet, when things finally got to the point where I felt this guy actually might do something to me, I had to answer a bunch of questions about MY behavior toward him to see if I might have done anything to justify him stalking me! AS IF! What could I have possibly done? Murdered his family (presume they would have heard about that)? Run over his dog? Put a voodoo spell on him???

The bottom line is that there is outlier behavior that should not be excused. Even if I had been totally rude to that guy in a meeting (I wasn't, since I was new to the project I was trying to be friendly to everyone) does that REALLY justify him threatening to kill me???? And if the daughter had had a romantic dalliance with stalker boy before deciding he was crazy does that justify, in anyone's mind, him stalking her because she doesn't want to date him??? Then why should he be allowed to make her life such a living hell that she's thinking to move to a different city where he can't find her?

The advice I gave my friend is, if a guy acts crazy toward you maybe you did something to set off his crazy, but that doesn't change the fact that he's still crazy and that isn't anyone's fault but the guy. Most people show their crazy early on in a relationship (friendship, romantic, colleague, whatever kind of relationship). As soon as you see the crazy get out of the relationship. Unless you're a profession shrink you aren't ever going to change that person's behavior and it's best to keep their crazy out of your life because it will drive you crazy too.

End of soapbox speech.

To be fair, it's not just guys that are crazy. I watched "Play Misty for Me" last night (got a box set of clint eastwood movies, 3 for $2 at target on saturday).

I'm working, really

Been a while since I posted anything but I swear I have been super busy the past week...

Where to start...well, I got pink highlights in my hair. Yes, pink. REALLY pink. They look so cool but amazingly people I know don't notice them at all until I point them out. They're called "peek-a-boo" highlights but seriously, when I walk down my street or am walking around Target people stop me and compliment my hair so why my friends don't notice I'm not sure. Note that my friend Cam noticed.

Next, I have a leak in my garage roof. I think I know where it is and how to fix it but wasn't able to get to it this weekend because of the rain/snow. I don't know why I keep saying "my last project in the house is done!" because there's ALWAYS another project. I also had to remount a bracket for my bike because it kept falling off the garage wall. It's fixed now. And I moved out my old work table and put a new one in and then cleaned the hell out of the garage because my friend Jess who started a food business is going to use the garage (and my refrigerator) to support her booth at the Jazz fest this saturday. I'm going to be a volunteer for her and she said I'm going to learn to cook brazilian food (ha. ha. ha.).

She was also like "are you sure you'll have room in your refrigerator?" I sent her a pic of my frig and she was like "oh, yeah, plenty of room". I have 5 beers, 5 sodastream sodas, a tub of yogurt, and salad stuff in one drawer in there at the moment. Oh, and a box of feta cheese. It's empty like Houston streets after 6 pm.

Someone tried to jump over my neighbor's fence that I just fixed and it's broken again...so I need to fix it...again...

And the incline on my treadmill isn't working. I tried to fix it and suspect a pinched wire. I called Sole and they are sending replacement wires and a technician out to fix it for free. I think something may have happened when I moved it to my office but we'll see. I did some research to see if it was a common problem and to prepare for an argument with customer service but they were super nice about the whole thing. Note: send in those warranty cards! It made everything simple. He typed in my phone number, brought up my info, and got the wires sent out in about 2 minutes.

Work has been crazy. I came up with an idea for a medical product for people with chronic diseases and I made it through the first meeting with the senior VPs. Next step is to get in touch with the venture capital group at my company and see if I can get funding for it. I feel like this is like trying to get my book published (almost there and then it will end in defeat) so I'm trying to not get my hopes up. But it would be cool if they even just prototyped it.

And I've been working on my gardening chops. I got a $70 amazon gift certificate and have so far managed to purchase 8 gardening books for a total cost of $20 (3 of the books were only a penny). I'm going to sign up for a hunter safety course and an avalanche course and might do the motorcycle safety course (getting in this time of year is a disaster - classes are full). I'm learning a lot about how to grow and pick plants. We'll see what happens once I get my vegetables in. I'm planting arugula, cucumbers, tomatoes, blueberries, blackberries, cilantro, basil, chives, spinach, and maybe one more herb.

Oh, and I found a great pho restaurant a little more than a mile from my house. Very excited I don't have to drive to federal for a pho fix. It's called pho-natic. I'm looking forward to trying some of their other dishes besides pho because I haven't figured out how to transport pho on my bicycle without spilling it.

And I just finished a 48 lecture class on the civil war and am about to start one on meteorology.

So that's my boring little life these days...

I forget to put up my do not disturb sign, to embarrassing results

I have some updates on the Mex vacation (having too much fun to blog last week) and some more videos, but I am currently in California for work (sucked, got home late sunday night, was on a plane monday morning for Cali, no idea how I used to travel like this all the time) and the hotel JUST NOW got their internet fixed so I haven't been able to write anything...

Anyway, quick but funny story. Last night I asked the hotel to reboot their router as that's what my diagnostics were saying was the problem. Instead of doing that they put me on the phone with some poor moron from ibahn who walked me through a series of useless steps (he was obviously reading off cards or something because any time I tried to divert his attention to my findings he freaked out). After about 5 minutes of that bullshit I was like "do me a favor - call the hotel and tell them to reboot the router". Which he did.

So they sent a maintenance guy to my room who crawled under the desk and watched as I showed him the diagnostics results and then stood there looking at my computer going "hmmmm" as if he could somehow solve the problem by staring at my computer with a dumb expression on his face. Finally I was like "why don't you go reboot the router" and he said he would. Minutes, and then an hour went by as I watched the router, which was still online. Finally I gave up on the router ever being rebooted, ate a pizza and then two mangoes, and started watching "stardust memories".

I was watching with my headphones in because I don't like to disturb people (I hate it when someone in the room next to me is blasting the TV or video games on a computer). It was totally silent in my room. About an hour into the movie I started farting because of the mangoes. I decided to record one of my farts to text to FH (this is something we do, I know, very mature for two almost 44 year olds). I wanted to impress him so I really let it rip. Right as I finished there was a knock at my door. I was like "oh god" and decided to sit still in the hopes the knocker would go away. No such luck, the person kept knocking. So finally I opened the door...

...and there was the maintenance guy, barely able to keep a straight face, letting me know that he had forgotten to reboot the router. I felt bad for him because he was trying to be professional even though both of us obviously wanted to die laughing. Which I did as soon as I closed the door. I am sure he heard me. I'm sure half the hotel heard that fart. FH said he held the phone up to his ear because my farts are usually not that loud and he texted me that my fart ruptured his ear drum.

And now I think I will go get some sushi.

Acaraje!!!

My friend Jessica just got her brazilian street food business running! Check out her web site: http://brasilstreetfood.com/

batting practice

The guys we hang out with down here are all obsessed to a certain extent with baseball. Bambino plays in a league and his brothers Willy and Arturo go to the batting cages at least once a week.

Here's my first time in the batting cage. Note that I've never really swung a bat before. I did have to play softball in gym class and occasionally tried to hit balls with my brothers in the back yard but never had any instruction. I think I'm probably one of the few people to trip over a ball in the batting cages...ball speed was 45 mph.

if you didn't break something you aren't really surfing

Monday I was waiting out in the line up at Olas Altas (water was confused, waves were crap) and FH, who had just ridden in was like "good one behind you!" So I laid down and started to turn my board (I was facing out to sea) but the wave suddenly jacked up and was rolling right at me. I was sideways and looked at FH. He looked horrified. I thought "jump off the board" but, since I'm cocky, I then thought "I can catch this thing!"

Needless to say I got slammed by the wave and ended up in the washing machine (never go into a wave sideways on a surf board). Rolled over 5 times before surfacing (that wave was by far the biggest, over 6 feet, and fastest of the day) and miraculously I was totally okay. I didn't even swallow any water.

...except that, after walking 5 miles to and from another beach this afternoon, I realized that (I think) I broke my toe. FH thinks I hit it on the surf board fin. He said "you're like that doll in your room, made outta paper".

Anyway, we're having a great time and food as usual is amazing. For dinner monday (I had to limp to the restaurant) we had chicken tostadas and the grand total for dinner for both of us was $4.50. Everything was home made.


And, here's a pic of my toe.

Took a few days off surfing - going to tape my toe tomorrow and see how it goes

 Tomorrow I'm going to post some pics of the shenanigans that went on tonight. Our friends down here in Maz took us to a batting cage to hit some balls. The place is also a bar and they didn't seem to mind that no one was wearing a helmet in the cage and I was in there filming with my gopro....

explosions for jesus

FH and I arrived in Mazatlan yesterday, and, neither of us being religious, were shocked to find out a big party was going on at the malecon (board walk in the centro historico). To celebrate easter the city throws a huge shin dig culminating in a "naval battle". While I'm not sure what a naval battle has to do with jesus, since he didn't die at sea, I was excited to see the battle.

As it would turn out, there weren't any naval ships. It was just a set up of fire works on either end of Olas Altas beach that were being fired into the centro historico. It was still exciting, but not for the reasons you might expect.

before the fire works there was a small, 3 truck parade - that's not a topless lady, just a statue of one

mariachi band plus some women in skimpy costumes

 

the fire works set up on the side of olas altas where we normally surf - yes, they had a fire extinguisher - safety first - by the time the show started there were lots of people standing on this sea wall, about 10 feet away from the fireworks - there were cops, but they were busy texting

our maz friend Bambino seemed surprised that the show did not start on time - about 15 after the scheduled time, as some of the fire works were about to be engulfed by the ocean, this guy came out to light the fire works - I took a pic of him halfway through the show with burning embers on his shirt but the pic is too dark to see anything, unfortunately

the show started out as normal fire works shows do...

...a few fireworks high in the sky...

then they lit off these fireworks, which shot straight into the sky - you can see people in the crowd running away from the sea wall as a huge burning ember lands on the side walk

the next firework they shot off sprinkled even more embers into the crowd...

...and into the street

In any case, no one was injured and all seemed to be having a great time. Unlike the US, there was no price gouging and FH and I had a dinner of vampiros for $7, and the total cost of beer for 5 of us was about $11. We left the party at 1130 and I was surprised to see people just arriving at that hour. The singing and festivities went on until about 530 in the morning (I know this only because the noise would wake me up when my ear plugs fell out). The malecon was clean this morning and there were no signs of the party (not sure how they did that).

To be cautious we went to the beach at stone island today because FH thought they might have hosed off the malecon into olas altas, potentially causing the water there to be full of bacteria.

Tomorrow surf's up at olas!

white board frame finished!

Saturday morning I stapled the white board frame together using my staple gun (everyone should have a staple gun). Then I primed it, realized I should have sanded it first, and then figured fuck it and added another coat of prime. Sunday I added three coats of green glitter paint.

The glitter paint has to cure for 24 hours so I had to wait until 2 pm today to mount it. All was going smashingly well until I tripped while trying to maneuver the frame into my house. I accidentally broke one side off and jammed my right pointer finger. The frame was fixed with a few screws. My finger still hurts.

I drilled holes in the wall so I could mount the frame on studs even though it's not that heavy.

not perfect but considering I had no idea what I was doing, and that the total cost for the frame was $12, not bad!

I'm not bernie madoff, but I do have screws on my desk

Well, it's been quite a day. Got up at the crack of dawn because the guys came to turn on my sprinklers at 730 this morning and for some reason, when people come to my house, I feel the need to be showered and stuff. Not that they care.

Then I moved my old shelves out of my office and put together my new ones. Very cool.

green matches my treadmill desk, sans glitter

Then I began the project to create a frame for my white board. Note to self, do a search before attempting to paint a white board on the wall. I found a bunch of suggestions for just taking a picture frame, putting a cool pattern in where the picture should go, and then writing on the glass. Cheaper, and a lot less work than my project.

Should have done a search before hand...

In any case, I've never built a frame before. I went to home depot and the only wood I could find was a thick pine but I got it anyway. And, while I was driving to hd, I saw the car in front of me hit a guy on a bicycle at the junction of Colfax and I-25 (exit ramp). He was okay but his back tire was mangled. Stupid bitch talking on her cell phone.

Where was I...oh yes, making the frame. I wouldn't suggest this process, but here's what I did:

One side of my white board is an inch shorter than the other (shut up Bob and Steve - YOU try leveling painters tape by yourself) so I decided to put the frame on so I could exactly measure where all the pieces needed to be cut.

so, um, that's my manual saw and crappy plastic mitre box - and my cutting surface is my as yet to be installed swamp cooler

fucking board kept moving around, and I have no idea where my clamps are, so I improvised with zip ties and zip tied each board to the mitre box before cutting it

switched to using my DWR desk that used to be in my office because the swamp cooler was not cutting it (haha) and then realized I cut one of the boards at the wrong angle...redo...glad I got all the boards in the same size so I used the mis-cut board for the (shorter) side and an as yet to be cut board as the replacement for the mis-cut board

ends sanded...ready to assemble...

are you fucking shocked? me too - it WORKED!!!!

Now all I have to do is staple the frame together, prime it, and then paint it with the glitter paint. Hopefully the staples will work...and not exactly sure how I'll get it on the wall by myself...but I'll think of something.

BTW, fitbit only gave me 500 steps for spending an hour sawing. Fuck you fitbit.

tools at the ready for mounting the white board...

lemon oatmeal bars and no bake oatmeal cookies - more disasters from my kitchen

My neighbor Carol sent me a recipe for oatmeal lemon bars to help me with my cooking skills. I decided to make them last night, as well as some no bake oatmeal cookies (I like oatmeal) that are supposedly so easy to make that they're on a web site for 6 year olds who want to cook.

I gathered all the ingredients...

...and realized I was looking at the wrong recipe. Different ingredients.

The lemon bars were supposed to go in an 8 x 12 inch dish. I used a 9 x 13 because that's what I have. And it said to butter the dish before putting the bars in it. I had doubts whether just butter was okay with a glass dish, or whether I should add flour, and whether the recipe writer assumed I'd be using a non-stick dish...in any case, I decided fuck it, I'll just butter the dish. My hand mixer looks like it's dying of exhaustion because it took almost 7 minutes to mix the butter to the point where it was squishy.

Lemon bars, assembled. I had to cook them for 4 extra minutes, not sure if that was because of the glass, using a different pan, or just a general fuck up on my part. The recipe said to cut them after I took them out of the oven but then to let them chill in the pan before removing them. I wasn't sure if that meant to put them in the refrigerator or if it was more like a Jay Z chillin thing. I put them in the refrigerator. When I took them out of the pan the bottom of the lemon bars were stuck to the pan but I figured out how to get them unstuck by using a knife and a spatula. Overall, they are good, but think a denser bar would be better. Should have waited until I had the right pan.

To make the no bake oatmeal cookies the recipe called for a cookie sheet, which I don't have, and parchment paper, which I don't have either. Wasn't parchment paper replaced in the middle ages? I used the top of a tupperware container and some wax paper.

So, the first step in the no bake recipe was to bake something. Odd. I had to melt butter and milk together. I used powdered milk and guessed what the powder to water ratio should be. To be honest I just threw a tablespoon (since one was already on the counter) in with some water and decided that was good enough.

It said to bring the milk and butter to a rolling boil. Not sure what that meant but once the milk and butter puffed up I assumed it was rolling.

The milk and butter mixed in with the other crap. And the recipe said to work quickly forming the mix into balls and dropping it on the parchment paper. Well, it was really fucking hot and hard to work with. Like trying to make balls out of boiling tar. Maybe they assumed that little kids cook so slow that if they didn't say hurry up the kids would take hours playing with the batter (or what ever you call the above mess) and not end up making any cookies.

I switched to this 8 x 8 metal pan because the tupperware lid wasn't working out very well. And at this point I realized I left out the 2 cups of sugar the recipe called for. I was like fuck it, I'm not going to try to add it in now.

Who pooped in my pan????

Completed food. Actually, both are pretty tasty. And now I don't need to cook for at least a month because that's how long it will take me to eat all this...

Van de Graaf generator

I got this from my brother Bob regarding my shocking treadmill:

You've made a pretty effective (and large) Van de Graaf generator.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/vandeg.html

Be proud, not many people build these anymore.

 

Well, go me...I guess.

my brother advises me on how to avoid shocks

me (to my brothers):

When I walk on my treadmill (in my running shoes) I keep getting shocked. Also, twice when I've touched my laptop the shock was bad enough to shut it down.

Any ideas?

I walked 10 miles at work yesterday...

my brother Steve (that's Dr. Steve to you, I can still call him just Steve):

Rubbing a rubber balloon on your head generates static electricity.  A treadmill is basically a very big version of this.  There are some static generators that are a rubber piece moving along a metal bowl in dry air.  Know any place with dry air?  

Your treadmill should be properly grounded and oiled that will reduce friction, and therefore electron exchange.  But if you are doing 10 miles a day and you are overwhelming it then you need to go to other measures: Look at #1: http://www.wikihow.com/Remove-Static-Electricity

Consider a personal ground, before you fry your computer: http://www.overclockers.com/personal-grounding-are-you-and-your-components-static-safe/ or http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-Anti-Static-Wrist-Adjustable-Grounding/dp/B00004Z5D1/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1397060633&sr=1-1&keywords=grounding+strap

Potentially your house has a poor ground.  I don't have an earth-ground tester, but many electricians do (they are only around $4k, we all should have one). Rather than hire an electrician to test your ground and install a rod, it might be cheaper to add a new grounding rod, just make sure that it's not in soil, that it's grounded in rock.

Every time I get my house fixed up to the point where I think I'm done, someone comes up with something else...now I'm worried about my house not being grounded properly...

and the winner is...me!!!!!!!!

I am shocked to report that I actually won an auction on eBay (for less money than I was willing to pay on top of it!)!

I am soon to be the owner of two great white shark teeth (and one megalodon fossil thrown in there too).

best self present - EVER

I guess it might sound strange but I am REALLY excited to receive these. Should come by Tuesday at the latest. Ever since I was 5 I've always wanted a REAL great white shark tooth. No idea how Sea World got these (that's where the owner bought them, back in the 80s). Hopefully they didn't kill a shark.I'm calling these teeth an early birthday present (eBay waits for no one and doesn't care when your birthday is).

Hopefully my arts and crafts neighbor might be able to help me figure out how to do a little display case for my teeth.

In other news, I've been taking a course on financial markets and have applied some of what I've learned to my eBay auctions. Here's a weird thing. I had three items that didn't sell, one because the bidder canceled the bid after she won the auction. In any case, I thought I had them priced right (about 50% below the market value I determined by looking at similar items and how they were priced) but I lowered the prices of all of my items and now have bids that exceed the expected price I was hoping to get. In the case of the item that I had to relist because the bidder fucked up, when I relisted I lowered the price by $5 and currently have a bid that is $10 higher than I would have gotten had the original winner not canceled her bid after winning. So by listing an item WAY below market value I'm actually getting way above the market value.

Financial markets are crazy because people don't always use logic when it comes to money...

Random fact - the reason that exchange rates between countries fluctuates so much is because the US is not on the gold standard anymore and many countries tie their currency to ours. And hedge funds were designed to REDUCE risk for investors. That didn't work out so well. And there are assets that you can only invest in if you have $1 million dollars in assets (minus your home) because someone determined if you have a million in assets you must be a "savvy" investor. Hm...

some badges I'd like to give to my fitbit

First, let me say I DO LOVE my fitbit. I like to be encouraged and get badges and shit. But sometimes I feel a little annoyed when my fitbit tries to push me to do more than I have. Weirdly, it's like I'm letting my fitbit down. And it's not even a person. It's just a piece of plastic that gives some people rashes.

Anyway, I made these badges for my fitbit:

adventures in moving and mulch

While it might seem that I've been slacking off lately because I haven't updated my blog in a while, it's quite the opposite. I've sold all my stuff on ebay except for two items (only one doesn't have a bid). And I've also made my first bid ever (for a collection of great white shark teeth with a known provenance - sea world in the 80s of all places).

AND, I moved my treadmill desk to my house and redid my office:

treadmill desk, pre-glitter paint

office, before

I added a white board to the wall using that white board paint - it was messy to work with so it better fucking work or I'm going to be pissed - can't write on it until tomorrow

treadmill desk in my office!

desk is cooler now that it has glitter on it

it's a little tight but I can vacuum on both sides of the treadmill AND still have room for my shredder and printer

The other thing I did was re-mulch my lawn with that rubber mulch. Supposedly it keeps the bugs away, doesn't break down, and is better for the plants because it doesn't retain moisture and get moldy.

On the potentially negative side, I am a little worried my yard will smell like tires come this summer. Which is still better than my neighbor's yard, which smells like dog shit because they never clean up after their dogs.

50 bags of mulch and three trips to home depot...the last trip an employee named Pedro felt sorry for me and helped me pack this last load of mulch in my car - when I offered him money he looked surprised and said "no, it is my job to help you" - for the record I did it on the down low so he wouldn't get in trouble for taking it - Pedro is a good guy

the mulch mobile...

I guess this picture would have been more interesting if I had taken a before shot so you could see how crap the yard was looking