The Mono

The bug bit me, finally

2009-12-21T06:31:26Z

With only a few days left until Christmas, I got the itch... so I started mixing cookie dough like a fiend today. I made dough for chocolate refrigerator cookies, soft gingersnaps, plain sugar cookies, and the family peppernuts. The chocolate cookies were new to me, but the Farm Journal hasn't let me down yet, and the dough tastes good. :)

The sugar cookies were also new; since my goal is to make a filled/cutout cookie with lemon custard in the middle, I wanted a plain, basic sugar dough to start with. I reached for Mark Ruhlman's "Ratio", knowing that he has a ratio for the simplest cookie possible (sugar, butter, flour). So I mixed up a batch according to his recipe: 2 ounces sugar, 4 ounces butter, 6 ounces flour. At least we have a good electronic "scale".

What I discovered is that this ratio fails with rice flour. It's odd, as I would expect weight to be the great equalizer between wheat and Asian rice flour -- they pack differently, but wouldn't the amount of actual material needed be the same? Apparently not. I adjusted it (1:3:3 seems to work well), added a splash of vanilla and a pinch of salt as suggested, and got a cookie dough that tastes just marvelous. If the cookies themselves taste anything like it, I'm sold. Ruhlman mentions that it's the quality of the butter that causes these cookies to succeed or fail; in that case, I highly recommend the store brand at Smart & Final, as it's fresh, very cheap, and tastes great. There's enough water in it to help with lifting baked goods, too. :)

So tomorrow I'll be baking these, as many as I get through, anyway. Not sure whether I'll get to making the lemon custard for the sugar cookies just yet. I made my Ninja Fudge today, so it's done and chilling in the fridge. I still have pie crust to make in the next few days; we need a mince pie, and I've had a request for another pumpkin pie too. Pie crust means more Cinnamon Pie Destroyers, which will make Greg happy.

Before Friday, we need to buy fruit (at least some D'anjou pears and a pineapple, maybe a grapefruit if there are some good ones out there) and our traditional lunch fare of sausage and cheeses for Christmas Day... I've been done with shopping for a while, and I'm ready to start wrapping. Whee!

Tonight

2009-12-02T03:10:26Z

I have no words.

Thought I'd share

2009-12-01T03:57:24Z

I scored a few lemons this weekend, so I'm making candied lemon peel and juicing them for.... something. Maybe lemon meringue or some other lemon custard, maybe lemon curd. I really want to pair it with vanilla -- they're that sort of lemon -- so we'll see.

Meanwhile, have my easy-peasy refrigerator candied lemon peel recipe. It turns out a very flavorful result. :)

Take an arbitrary number of lemons. Wash them, then zest them carefully with a sharp knife so that you get no white pith on the peel... I mean none. If you have to have a teensy layer of it, okay, but if you eliminate it totally that's best. You can shave it off the inside of the peel after you've taken it off the lemon, if necessary.

Take a small bowl which you can live without for a little while. Lay the peel in the bowl in layers, alternating with enough white sugar to just cover it. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator for at least ten days. Start checking it by pulling out pieces and looking at them in strong light; when they turn translucent all the way through, they're done. It may take up to two and a half weeks depending on the lemons.

Spread the pieces of peel on a baking sheet and dry them. It can be done in a warm room, in a dehydrator set to fan only, or in an oven on the lowest setting. When they are no longer sticky, put them in a plastic bag with a little extra sugar. After a day or so, shake them up so that any stickiness that returns gets coated with sugar. Repeat for two to three days, then put them in an airtight container for storage.

I've also used it to candy thinly-sliced ginger with very good results.

More hobbies

2009-11-24T04:07:52Z

Today I realized I still had a half-dozen butterflies in the freezer from when I caught them a year ago -- they're not supposed to stay frozen that long, as they dessicate and become impossible to pin. But I had the itch again, so I figured I'd give it a try.

I started with the common ones, and though I shredded one skipper that was too dry, I managed to mount another skipper (I think it's a ~~blue~~ checkerspot of some kind) and spread two cabbage butterflies as well. I'm a little rusty, but that's why I try to practice at least once a year, so I don't lose the skill. Cabbage butterflies are great for practice because they're large enough to get a grip on, they're as common as dirt, and they're pests so I don't cry over killing a bunch just to hone my skills.

I still have a (tattered) sulfur butterfly and an unknown one which is subtly beautiful in pastels, which are thawing out now... I always wanted a sulfur butterfly in my collection. We'll see whether they're still hydrated enough to spread out properly. If they're brittle, I can try steaming them like I did with the others tonight, that seemed to help.

I don't know why I like this hobby so much, but I do. The killing part I'm not so fond of, but the mounting and display, that's fun. :)

Edit: Steaming worked, and I managed to mount both the sulfur butterfly and the stranger with minimal hassle. I was virtuous and even wrote out cards for them with the location and date they were caught. They should all be dry and ready to put in the case by Thanksgiving evening -- which means I can use them as an excuse to pull out my collection and bore the guests. ;)

A slice of the life I'm trying to cultivate

2009-11-16T04:48:39Z

"Hmm, I feel like some rhubarb cobbler for dessert."

Go downstairs, get shoes and flashlight, head out to the garden. Pull a good double handful of rhubarb stalks. Bring them inside, wash and trim them. Cut them into 1/2" pieces, as the plant variety is such that peeling is unnecessary.

Pull out a small casserole and dump the pieces in. Look up a rhubarb pie recipe for the flour:sugar ratio, eyeball the amount of fruit, and estimate amounts. Pour the flour and sugar mix on. Toss some oatmeal in a bowl, add a half-handful of brown sugar, a dollop of flour, and a few tablespoons of butter; mash it together. Cover the top of the fruit with it.

Look at a few more recipes, set the oven to 425F, toss in the casserole dish, and set the timer to 35 minutes as a first guess. Head back upstairs. Watch old TV shows while the aroma of cobbler wafts up the stairs. Go down and pull it out. Watch some more TV until it's cool enough to touch. Eat dessert. Elapsed time since the rhubarb was pulled off the plant: 90 minutes.

I can cook well enough I don't need recipes for everything. I have a garden which provides us with something we all love, year-round, 24 hours a day. I have an hour in my evening which I can devote to combining the two.

This is the life I'm slowly working toward, and I love it.

I remember Armistice Day

2009-11-12T00:59:56Z

Before this was dubbed Veteran's Day, it was a day for us to remember that even after the bloodiest war, one which claimed countless lives, we could still find peace.

The red poppies of Flanders Fields were watered with human blood, but on November 11th, soldiers were finally able to emerge from their foxholes and walk upright, in peacetime, like civilized men rather than as fodder for the war machine. They gazed across the fields strewn with their fallen comrades and saw the true cost of war.

I am grateful to all our living service-members and vets -- I know quite a few, by now. Your service has enriched this nation. But today isn't about you; it's about striving for a time when no one has to be sent to fight and die on foreign soil. It's about the hope that follows the blackest night, when the dawn finally comes. It's about war's end, and remembering that no matter how long and how horrific the fighting may be, we can hold to our hope for armistice, for truce, for peace.

Veterans, I salute you. Let's all hold hope for the end to every war.

Another food back from the dead

2009-11-10T01:35:34Z

Thanks (in a tangential fashion) to pecunium's recent musing about fish, I seem to have found a decent substitute for canned tuna, in taste and texture if not convenience. I'm happy about that.

I react to canned fish for some reason, and I've missed having the occasional tuna salad sandwich in the last couple of years. But today, reminded by the discussion about sardines and looking over the decidedly tuna-like shape of the mackerel at the fish market (they didn't have sardines today), I picked up three 8" Indian mackerel and brought them home.

They weren't as easy to de-bone as sardines, sadly; the best way to take out the spine appears to be to cook them first and shuck the meat off afterward. I also had the usual issue with fish, in that they manage to stick to my 30-year-old cast iron skillet, a feat even eggs can't manage... I had to chisel out the crispy bits afterward with a metal spatula, though they were worth the effort. (Thoughts, pecunium?) Still, I got a decent pile of nice firm fillets from the exercise.

Being larger than sardines, they're a little strong to eat plain -- I'll eat full-size mackerel, but I really prefer that it be marinated first -- so I tossed them into a bowl with some mayonnaise, dill weed, and a bit of garlic. As I just made my first successful set of English muffins yesterday, I warmed one up and made a sandwich. BINGO: it was perhaps a little more mild and soft than canned tuna, but it had the right flavor profile, which canned salmon most definitely does not. I had two sandwiches, as between the proper English muffin texture (nom) and the tuna salad I had missed (omnom) I couldn't resist another round. I was stuffed, but happy.

To even approach the same level of convenience as canned fish, I'd need to freeze pre-cooked portions, but I'm thinking about doing that just so I can have my occasional fix. Especially as I make more English muffins and correct my bagel recipe, as I really like tuna salad on both of those forms of bread. Oh, and little mackerel are dirt-cheap and easy to clean. :)

I have weird taste in breakfast cereals

2009-11-07T21:57:30Z

When I was in Whole Foods the other day, I discovered purely by accident that Weetabix has spun off a whole-oats version. (Yes, it is called "Oatibix".) I gleefully snatched up the box before I thought about what I was doing. I'm now nearly halfway through a surprisingly heavy box of edible brillo pads, and looking forward to the rest. God only knows why. I missed Weetabix more than I realized, despite the fact that the substance it most closely resembles is particle-board, and it has a little less flavor than Cheerios. With a pinch of brown sugar it's pretty decent, though, and I've been toying with ideas for how to toast the pads without a toaster oven. They'd shed horribly in the toaster.

I've been looking for a gluten-free version of shredded wheat for years, and I've never found one. That's another cereal that many people have to be forced to eat, but which I actually miss. I have no idea what process is involved in making it, but I'm a little surprised that in the sea of gluten-free wafer cookies and gluten-free pretzels, there's nothing at all like Triscuits or shredded wheat. I'm sure it's technically feasible.

I'd adore a wheat-free version of Grape-Nuts, too. I know that malt is an essential part of the flavor, so getting rid of the barley (and thus gluten) is out of the question, but I could eat it so long as the wheat vanished. I miss it perhaps most of all -- crunchy, soggy, it never really mattered, I ate it anyway. I've always preferred things like Kix and Chex to Lucky Charms, even as a kid... I also miss the dark flavor of a good raisin bran, as apparently oats and rice don't have that depth of flavor (or light crisp flake, even). Sigh.

Maybe when I'm done researching bread I'll go into the cereal business. :)

Edit: The Internet to the rescue. Complete with barley malt, which most recipes lack.

Up to my eyeballs, still

2009-11-07T04:48:16Z

Why oh why do I let people dump 60 pounds of fruit on me every autumn?* First pears, now feijoas. Still working my way through the backlog (I'm glad they're keeping so long). Boy.

In other news, I harvested sweet potatoes larger than my two fists; the total usable crop fills a six-gallon bucket, with only one split one. It was a good year. Fortunately, sweet potatoes actually like neglect...

*Hint: it's because they're tasty.

CFS and XMRV

2009-10-27T20:46:30Z

I've been avidly following the news about a possible link between Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV). It's good and bad news -- good that I may have something I can point to as a cause, bad because it's a retrovirus. Do I have it? Will there be any viable treatment? Could I have exposed my partners to it? We don't know exactly how it spreads yet, though sexual transmission is thought to be possible, and tests for it aren't readily available. The thought that I might have exposed people I love to a virus which causes cancer is frightening.

While reading this NYT opinion piece*, however, I learned something about the debut of CFS to the medical consciousness:

The illness became famous after an outbreak in 1984 around Lake Tahoe, in Nevada. Several hundred patients developed flu-like symptoms like fever, sore throat and headaches that led to neurological problems, including severe memory loss and inability to understand conversation. Most of them were infected with several viruses at once, including cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr and human herpesvirus 6. Their doctors were stumped. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the nation’s presumed bulwark against emerging infectious diseases, dismissed the epidemic and said the Tahoe doctors “had worked themselves into a frenzy.” The sufferers, a C.D.C. investigator told me at the time, were “not normal Americans.”

When, by 1987, the supposed hysteria failed to evaporate and indeed continued erupting in other parts the country, the health agency orchestrated a jocular referendum by mail among a handful of academics to come up with a name for it. The group settled on “chronic fatigue syndrome” — the use of “syndrome” rather than “disease” suggested a psychiatric rather than physical origin and would thus discourage public panic and prevent insurers from having to make “chronic disbursements,” as one of the academics joked.

An 11th-hour plea by a nascent patient organization to call the disease by the scientific name used in Britain, myalgic encephalomyelitis, was rejected by the C.D.C. as “overly complicated and too confusing for many nonmedical persons.”

This makes so much sense -- and makes me so angry. It shows how preconceptions in the medical field can ruin lots of people's lives over decades (Chronic Lyme is another example). Patients have been dismissed, doctors have been flagged as quacks, research simply hasn't been done because this wasn't a "real disease". We're decades behind where we should be in finding causes and treatments for it.

I'm glad researchers are finally really looking into it, but the body count has been horrendous. I hope the investigation into XMRV yields something useful, and I hope that the search for other causes and factors continues as well. We need answers.

* Requires a login or Bugmenot.

Reason #Eleventy-million we need real health care reform

2009-10-24T02:45:15Z

For victims of sexual assault who are denied coverage afterward.

Coffee buzz

2009-10-18T22:29:18Z

I'm not a big coffee drinker. I suppose it was inevitable that when I went to the Pacific Northwest for college in the mid-90's, I'd pick up latte drinking, though. I've kept with the occasional cup since then, mostly to warm up or relax after a stressful class... I got a home espresso maker for Christmas one year, the kind that steams milk and yadda yadda, and used it occasionally. The last time I pulled it out (I was having a bad day), the pump quit. $100 for repairs? sigh. I don't drink them often enough to know who the good barristas are around here, which means that just going out (hard at 2am anyway) results in expensive undrinkable coffee half the time. I managed to fix the last latte from Panama Bay, but it took some doing.

I looked around, and didn't like the idea of paying $60-80 for a newer machine I'd only use once in a while, but all the stores had were basic coffeemakers and professional-style espresso machines. mactavish made the offhand comment that her espresso maker works on the stove, and that made me curious. So I went looking.

It turns out that, while such macchinettas are quite inexpensive ($10-20), and effective enough that the design has stayed the same for most of a century, no brick and mortar store carries them west of Manhattan. So I took a chance and ordered one, and waited 10 days for delivery. It came yesterday, and I played with it today.

After brewing and throwing out two rounds of coffee (to break in the aluminum finish), I made a mocha with the third. I have to say: it brews fast (2 minutes), it's easy to clean, it's quiet, it fits neatly on our smallest stove burner, and it's quite cute. It also makes very good coffee. I like my lattes and mochas to taste like premium coffee ice cream, the sort that has coffee grounds in it, without bitter or sour notes... this has a very slight bitter edge, but I suspect I can solve that by lightening the coffee blend a little. Otherwise it's at least as good as anything I've paid $3 for at a shop. I can brew good decaf rather than what the shop has on hand, sweeten it exactly as I like it, add chocolate or molasses (or not)... with no more hassle than the other machine gave me. Less, actually, as I don't have to worry about whether I've tamped it so firmly it'll burn.

So, all in all a good purchase. Thanks for turning me onto it, mactavish. :)

Networking again

2009-10-15T20:37:47Z

Does anyone know a good silversmith who does lost-wax casting? There's a pendant I want, but it looks like I'll have to have it custom-made. (Relatively) inexpensive would be a definite plus.

Edit: Looks like this one will have to get put on hold. Commissioning a pendant would run me at least $250. Crucible classes cost $350 or so. I can get precious metal clay (thanks unseelie23) for $25, but I have no way to fire it, as I doubt I can get a consistent temp of even 1300°F for 20-25 minutes (they say you can do it on home gas stoves or with torches, but how do you hold it in place, let alone make sure the temperature is correct?) so I'd need access to a kiln. Which I don't have. Sigh.

Everything costs too much.

Looking for more specialists

2009-10-08T23:44:03Z

~~Anybody familiar with patent law out there?~~

Never mind, I'm pretty well convinced that a patent isn't what I want. Carry on... :)

urp

2009-09-30T01:19:52Z

I spent the day trying to make puff pastry -- the stuff croissants and turnovers are made of.

I gave it five or six turns (I lost count), rolled it out to a quarter-inch, and cut it into rough squares. It was my first time, I wasn't going to get neat edges. :) Then I put apple-pie filling into the squares, folded them over, and baked until golden brown.

Not one of the books and websites I've consulted on puff pastry said anything about providing drainage while baking. Yow.

Despite the impressive amount of clarified butter that ended up on the pan, these things are RICH. Not greasy, fortunately -- but when I eat one, I can feel my stomach getting a bit uneasy because of the sheer amount of oil I'm dumping on it. They're still good enough that I ate two, and I'm eyeing a third, but I really don't want to be ill tonight. It's a good thing my metabolism is so resilient -- these are diet-busters.

I would say that this was a success, in that I believe it was (once again) a lack of technique rather than a recipe failure which kept them from being perfect turnovers; the edges are very crispy and flaky, and the interior with the apples is moist and comes apart in sheets. BUT... The recipe would need a minimum of two more tests to make it out of my house, and I'm afraid I would not survive eating the results. Even if I stretched out my attempts across a couple of months, still... damn. Maybe if I made the squares/croissants really small, I think they freeze okay after baking...

Notes to self: making tortillas

2009-09-29T06:07:55Z

I made flour tortillas for the second time tonight. Of course, in my world, first attempts usually don't fail as much as second ones. So...

Lessons learned about making tortillas:

- The skillet needs to be hot, but there is such a thing as too hot.
- Use metal spatulas. (oops.)
- A two-inch ball makes an 8" tortilla.
- The tortillas can be rolled only once; re-rolling them after a flop results in a placemat.
- Roll them until they refuse to be rolled any thinner - yes, they will stop at a certain point.
- Use a flat griddle, not a skillet.
- If using a skillet, put the tortilla on a flexible cutting surface, then curve the surface into a half-circle to ease the tortilla onto the skillet. Don't touch the sides (bzzzt!)
- Count the thirty-five seconds per side, don't try to estimate.

The first two attempts were placemats. Then I started getting better, and the last two were eased into the pan perfectly once I learned the way to coax them off the cutting surface. Then I found the griddles, which should make my next batch even easier, without stressing the seasoning on my cast-iron skillet. Five good tortillas from this batch, though -- that should make fajitas tomorrow night quite pleasant. :)

The skillet also ended up doing a sort of "self-clean" cycle -- it got so hot the accumulated lacquer around the edges flaked off. Not a bad thing to do every eight to ten years. However, I think a heat-sensor gun might be a good tool to have for this sort of exercise...

Television fail

2009-09-28T02:18:31Z

I guess it's sort of a compliment to CSI: Vegas that it went 199 episodes before coming up with a script that was so badly written I actually couldn't finish watching it. I'm pretty lenient in my standards; I'll cope with potboilers, I only cringe a bit when people act out of character, and I find cliches amusing. But boy howdy, the "200th episode special" defeated me. At least it wasn't false advertising: that one was, indeed, "special".

Yet another PSA... or IS it? dun dun DUNNN

2009-09-26T03:06:09Z

Bahahahahaha!

Help? Submitting manuscripts for non-fiction

2009-09-21T03:28:24Z

As some of you know, I'm writing a cookbook. Unfortunately, while I know a great deal about gluten-free bread, I know next to nothing about submitting a manuscript to publishers and evaluating potential offers. I think that if I'm at the point of putting "pen" to "paper" on this, it's time I start considering what format a publisher might want, and how to make it appealing to them.

So I ask my multi-talented friends list: Have any of you been involved in getting a how-to book (anything from how to do Europe on 3 euros a day to how to make your own siege engines to, well, a cookbook) from handwritten material to hold-it-in-your-hand book form?

I'm hoping that someone out there might be able to, if not offer some advice on the workings of the publishing industry, at least offer the name of a good book on the subject. :)

Thank you!

Catching up on Questionable Content

2009-09-18T02:54:01Z

I go without for a long time, then catch up all at once. For those unfamiliar with the strip, here's a good example which requires no knowledge of the characters involved, yet offers a good example of the humor and the art. There are also running plots with a full cast, for those who like sagas, but the punchlines do come quite regularly.

I really should read it more regularly, now that I have the time... that and xkcd are about the only ones which have kept my interest over the years (aside from Casey and Andy, which is done).

This is my day.

2009-09-17T18:18:11Z

I woke up about an hour ago. I'm going to go cook my breakfast, then I will go out and work on the front strip (after two years of delays, I'm finally ready to put in irrigation lines) until it's either too hot or I'm too tired. Then, I will come inside, eat lunch, and work on my bread book. Perhaps I'll bake, perhaps I'll write, perhaps I'll play with the desktop publishing program I picked up.

Today is my reward for sticking it out through three years of stress, deprivation, and doing things I couldn't care less about -- if I didn't feel active hatred for them -- day after day. Today, and tomorrow, and next week, and next month.

Delayed gratification actually works sometimes.

luna_torquill @ 2009-09-08T18:48:00

2009-09-09T03:03:28Z

This year's Burn was more satisfying than the last in a lot of respects. That said, there is still room for lots of improvement next year.

I solved 90% of the interpersonal problems that occurred last year (mostly by revising my own actions and expectations). So most of that went pretty smoothly. Greg and his sweetie and I got along well, minus the snarkiness that comes from lack of sleep and too much stress; no blood was shed and we're all still on good terms, so I would say it was a success on that front. Last year I was unhappy a lot of the time because I kept losing my companions or getting left behind, so this year I did most of my activities solo, and enjoyed myself. It's better with a friend, but I always end up worrying whether my companions are enjoying what we're doing or would really rather be somewhere else; when I'm by myself, the worries vanish and I can run around as the spirit moves me. Besides, I think a Burn experience can't be shared well. Problem dealt with.

Influx was difficult simply because it took more time than we expected. We left at 5pm on Sunday (almost exactly!) to avoid the I-80 closure at Colfax, which we managed by half an hour. We got into Reno around 10pm, and left around midnight or 12:30. We figured we might have to perch in somebody's camp for the last few hours before dawn, since hunting for space is hard in the dark. As it turned out, traffic started up halfway between Fernley (the truck stop at 80) and Gerlach (the town outside Black Rock City), not helped by the insane line waiting for the Gerlach Shell station which backed everything up for miles. It had been long enough when we hit Empire that Greg had to have a nap before he passed out while driving. By the time we got down onto the playa surface, it was getting light out. We dropped everyone off where they needed to go, then cruised around for a parking spot, getting more and more stressed... when it became evident that I was just short of having hallucinations (I don't think I've ever stayed up 27 hours before, even in college) Greg negotiated a few hours of perching at Poly Paradise so that I could have a nap. Sometime after that we moved to our final spot at 5:10 and Chaos, though I was still mostly asleep. We may have to figure out a better schedule for all that so that we aren't totally wrecked by what's become a 14-hour slog.

It was the Year of Equipment Failures, too. It was complicated by not having enough time to pack and prepare for the trip, but I think a lot of it would have happened anyway. The relay between the engine and the generator on the RV fused closed during the trip over (whoops) so the batteries were draining faster than usual. The generator refused to work after the first day, and we spent a day without running water or lights -- thank goodness I had put in the water tank drain outside, as it acted as our "well" when the water pump was off. The generator was made happier when a neighbor took a look at the battery bank, decided that the corrosion was excessive, and used his own generator to power the Dremel to take a bunch off; that made a good enough connection that the generator could start up again. However, the batteries themselves are so old they were basically dead, and we were running off of a friend's single deep-cycle battery we had borrowed (thank goodness). We had to run the generator daily, since my wind turbine wasn't ready to go, and the little solar panel we had gave it about a half-charge each day. My bike stand, which was invaluable this year, lost its locking bolt when I took it to Center Camp, so that I had to tie it open with twine. My solar oven worked beautifully (250F+), but the weather didn't cooperate; after 12 or 1pm, we got so much wind that the dust cut out most of the solar energy. I did cook some chicken in it for later use, but it wasn't able to heat up dinner any of the days we were there. Wacky weather; I don't remember it having that pattern every day last year. The refrigerator barely worked, and we lost the drain plug off of one of the ice chests. The engine developed a squeal which is probably a dying belt pulley, and we had to replace both front tires on the rig the morning of departure because one had developed very scary cracks. It was just one headache after another, and we got pretty stressed.

All of that gerry-rigging meant we were busy for the first half of the week, but I did get some good exploration in. I hooked up briefly with Helena, the family friend I had coached on prepping for her first Burn, and she was having a great time. mikz stopped by a few times, which was a delight. I also found an old friend from the late 90's (anyone remember Tony Valerro?) by looking him up in the Directory -- I had no idea he was an eight-year veteran, and I'll have to add him on Facebook. I missed connections with dicedork despite efforts on both sides, but I think that was the only person I missed there. I even found Neverwas Haul, by virtue of having driven past it on the way in, so I met up with Joe (whom I met at a party a couple of months ago) and even got a tour of the playa on it one evening. That was fabulous. He says it's the most popular art car there, and I totally believe him; it got crowds of admirers everywhere it went.

We were camped across from a nice couple from Washington's upper peninsula, who set up Nude Camp, and we'll see whether we can camp next to them next year -- ours was a very good neighborhood. I found The Lost Penguin cafe at 3:15 and Esplanade, discovered that I knew one of the bartenders from a different party (nice guy), and talked to Coyote a few times. He's such a nice fellow, even if I do suspect his vocal chords are scarred from his fire-eating tricks; it makes him hard to hear when there's any ambient noise. I met a charmer who introduced himself as Homeless, though I forgot and had to track him down by description a couple of nights later (he showed up behind me while I was writing a note to him on the whiteboard). He reminds me a great deal of Steve Mikkelson in a way -- I wish he didn't live in Canada, as we seemed to connect on a good level. He's a cuddler, and warm (nice on a cold desert night), and has some very interesting ideas about philosophy, spirituality, and the nature of reality. He's also old enough to be my father, but who cares. :) Physically, he looks a bit like Bill Nighy to me.

I flirted with a few art cars (think like fish sporting alongside whales, only the whales are booming good techno music as they cruise along)... I found the Burninator, a collection of large propane jets that would go off in patterns as determined by the team on the center console, truly a breathtaking experience. I found an open-walled pavilion that had fire crawling idly along its ceiling, which is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life. I saw the Flamethrower Shooting Gallery start up for the night. I came across the Temple minutes before it opened, and so saw it in its pristine glory before it was covered in sharpied wishes and pictures of the deceased. I saw the giant Rubik's Cube as three separate teams tried to solve it at once. I found the Aluminum Dragon art bicycle again, both at night and again during the day so that I could get proper pictures (they were camped again where we had been last year, which was when I first saw it). There was a sandworm art car too, which I thought was appropriate. I saw the Man at night and in the daytime; less impressive than last year, but still the Man. I wandered out to 12:00 and perimeter, the furthest out you can legally get on the playa.

I got some good emotional work done too, which I needed. The Burn seems to be a good environment for me to do that, a sort of Brigadoon that doesn't work by real-world rules, out in a place that looks like the surface of the moon. It was satisfying.

By the end I had felt like enough playa dust had soaked into my pores to last me for another year; a week is enough, I think, though not too much. I'll be doing more bike work next year, though I may set up shop by myself (I got a bad taste in my mouth from Bike Rock City in Center Camp). I'll take some of the suggestions I got from the Alternative Energy Zone folks and get my wind turbine working by next year. We'll thoroughly clean and fix up the RV while it's in storage, since it's parked at Greg's house rather than the RV yard, so we can have more reliable equipment and more luxuries (like a sound system, perhaps). And I'll bring ingredients to make soda on site for the Zymurgist's Flocculation.

Exodus started far too early, when we got woken up at 3:20am by the Duck Pond (who lost their watch and didn't want to be late). We couldn't get back to sleep in 20 minutes, and the alarm was set for 3:45. We rolled just after 5am, amazingly, thanks to everyone getting there within the departure window, and got our time-constrained passenger to Concord BART in plenty of time to get to SFO for a 3pm flight. Still, I'm not sure we want to leave that early again, even if it did get us through Vacaville and Fairfield before the Labor Day traffic jam. Everybody else got a nap on board, but I can't sleep in a moving vehicle (to say I'm a light sleeper is an understatement) and Greg was driving. Both of us are pretty tired.

I'll see about posting pictures once I pull them off the camera. I don't have everything, especially since that little $60 camera didn't handle darkness really well, but I have some good shots that represent my experience out there.

I understand that others decide whether they'll go based on time off and money available, but I can't imagine missing it, even if I have to panhandle the ticket money. I guess I'm a Burner to the core.

Quickie

2009-09-08T04:07:28Z

I got approved for Planned Educational Leave for fall quarter. I just need to sort things out with financial aid before the 21st and I'm set.

And now? I sleep. A lot.

I'm back!

2009-09-07T23:44:09Z

Back from the Burn... we survived (it feels like by the skin of our teeth, as this was The Year Of Equipment Failures) and had a good time, for the most part.

We saved $60 on gas this trip, thanks largely to those of you who switched to using our Safeway card at the grocery store. Thank you all!

I'm only at skip=120 on my friends list, so as long as you don't all get insanely chatty in the meantime, I expect to be caught up within a couple of days. If there's something you want to make sure I don't miss, you might post a link or reference as a comment here.

I hope everyone's doing well! :)

Wind turbine: test

2009-08-28T06:38:39Z

I went out to Pittsburg tonight to test the turbine.

I assembled it half by feel, in the dark, until Greg came up with one of the head-lamps that illuminates where I look (better than him having to hold the floodlight on it). I screwed the pipe to a board, clamped the board to a fence, assembled the apparatus and put it up -- first time without even any chains, just the freespinning rotor, to see how it did.

Result: Abject failure.

Granted, the wind direction was erratic; it kept flipping up to thirty degrees back and forth, which meant the blades had trouble maintaining their momentum (change the course of a spinning bicycle wheel and see how much speed it loses). But even when I gave it a hefty starting spin, either direction, in a couple of minutes it had reverted to shifting uncertainly this way and that way, not actually spinning at all.

I put the blades on backward, so the concave side faced outward, and it seemed to do very slightly better (though that may have been my imagination).

My only thought is that I need to check the pitch of the blades, to make sure the leading edge is in the same plane as the face (in airplane terms, make sure it's not trying to "lift off" off the face of the rotor or tilted to "descend" into it). From what I remember from balancing them, though, they're basically planar. So.... maybe it needs a steeper pitch to "bite" into the wind? I really don't know. Everything I know about airfoils said that these blades should have spun at some speed in 15-20 mph winds, and they failed utterly.

The scenarios I expected were: success (thus it goes to the Burn) or failure in that the blades are too small (thus it stays home for a year). I found scenario three: failure so total and inexplicable that I take it to the Burn... because there are lots of wind-power experts there who might be able to help.

It's been an interesting project. For now, I'll focus on getting the bikes ready, packing, and cooking.