The great website migration of 2013 just got completed last night.
I’m sure a bunch of sites got a slew of re-notifications that someone linked to their site (sorry JYuenger), but I had to move thethousandyard stare to a hosted site.
After years of using the free wordpress site with some small financial additions, I realized that I could shift it to the host that hosts one of my other websites with zero cost.
So….more flexibility with my blog, zero space/media restrictions and then zero cost? Sign me up!
Much thanks to the two support techs at Bluehost.com – the two things I couldn’t figure out (quickly) they handled in a matter of minutes.
Other than that, it’s an icy wasteland here – rather unusual for this area, but it is what it is.
Again, the menagerie of cats in my yard far exceeded my expectations.
They like the new electrical box. Most of the cats aren’t in this picture. There’s another four or five cats that were wandering in other parts of the yard when I snapped this.
Part of my lack of blogging really has more to do with how much writing I’m doing at work. I’ve turned into a documentarian. Everything that comes up ends up with a question – “Has this been documented?”
And then I create a fantastic, thorough, extensive working documents……which then nobody reads.
Repeat this process daily about three or four times a day, then it can be seen how blogging has lost some magic. That, and there’s nothing really exciting going on.
I feel somewhat obliged to provide a picture of my “sad” trees. It’s freezing here, and the ice is weighting everything down.
I had asked my lawn guy multiple times (since they also do construction) to tear down the arbor above my back patio. I’ve been pestering him on and off for about two months now, they’ve had to push it back several times. It’s about to fall down and I was afraid of the first freeze/snow/ice that it would be too weighted down. Yes, it’s propped up by boards. It’s got some lean….some might say my porch has swagger.
It looks somewhat better camouflaged by sad bushes though:
There’s also an opossum or raccoon that has occupied my attic which is somewhat disconcerting.
I did do something that I haven’t ever really done seriously: Karaoke
We were out on the town and decided to hit a local watering (boozing) hole (and hole-in-the-wall) and do some sang-ing.
My range sucks. And my song choices are strange too. I choose less on what I think I can sing than what kind of risk I’m taking on performing it.
I started with this, and it didn’t go badly:
I think I followed it up with some Huey Lewis and the News, Billy Idol, Stray Cats and a crowd favorite:
Yesterday I got pitched by a pro. This guy was truly good. Sometimes i think that having lived a little does eventually teach you something.
Credit: http://www.kevinredpath.co.uk/
To start, I was having a great morning. Seriously, a GREAT morning, where even though I was late to work nobody cared, I was getting all my stuff done and pretty much knocking it out of the park. Around 1:30, I felt like I’d accomplished enough and could take a break.*
Heading over to the Starbucks local to my office, I ordered and went to sit down in one of the cushy chairs. It was angled slightly toward the guy in the corner, but that didn’t really matter to me, it didn’t look like anyone was sitting there.**
“There is now”, the man said with a large smile on his face.
He started the conversation innocently enough.
“How is your day going?”
We bantered a bit. I was in a great mood, so I kept batting back inane comments and quips to make him chuckle. I didn’t have anything immediately pressing back at work so it was just a means of hanging out for a minute. We discussed how this Starbucks was close to the airport, and how people there tended to be travelers. It neatly segued into
“So, what do you do, if I may ask?”
I discussed it briefly, omitting where I actually worked and instead named the contracting company that actually pays me. i’d already overheard someone not three feet from me on my right that was discussing some information that had to do with my company, so I wanted to be a little careful.
There was a slight pause. Since I’m conversationally challenged some times, I did decide to go down that path. “So, what do you do?”. Now, my hesitancy doesn’t really have anything to do with being shy, or understanding how conversation works. It really has more to do with me not really caring what other people do for a living. I don’t put much stock in people that I meet randomly, because you can never tell who they really are. I doubt that I will meet a guy at Starbucks and it turns into someone I consider a life-long friend. Cynical? Yeah. Sorry.
This guy was soooo good, he didn’t immediately talk about what he did. He eased into it so gradually that I didn’t see it coming. He talked about: Racism in hiring practices (which was immediately astonishing, but reflecting back, not likely), scraping the bottom of the barrel in applying for jobs, being over qualified, being in the military, dis-illusionment with media and society in general, supporting his family, owning his own home, the american dream.
About 10 minutes in, honestly, I was ready to bolt. I realized that this guy was going to talk forever. ***
But at work right now, I’m relatively indispensable so I knew that if I was gone a little longer than normal, nobody was going to really worry about it. That’s how good the day was going.
So inbetween my, “Wow, that’s crazy” and nods of agreement, and shakes of the head against “the man”, he finally, FINALLY gets to the original answer. And he didn’t answer it directly. He had peppered his initial stores with “self employeed”, “my own boss” and “owning my own company”. As I fell deeper into his rabbit hole, he got a little closer to what he actually does.
When he finally got around to it, he started at the periphery and worked his way inward. Like an onion. I can’t even type this up as eloquently as he brought it around, but it started with things like “My wife is retiring at the end of this year”, “I’ll be retiring soon”. As he got closer to the core, the details start coming in. “Thanks to the deregulation, and who doesn’t use electricity?”, and “When people hear that they could be paying single digits for a kilowatt hour, and most are paying double digits, they immediately are interested, even if they’re not interested in contacting people, they still want to save money”. Note at this point, he has not told me ANYTHING directly about what he does. Finally, the key line emerges, “so I get paid not only when they sign up, but when the sign other people up and then every time they pay their bill.”
From there it went into a VERY roundabout discussion about how he has friends that I don’t have and that I have friends that he doesn’t have. My spider sense has been building up.
When the key line above hits my ear hole, i put all the pieces together, and realize that he’s involved in one of the pyramid schemes for electricity.
Back in the 90’s, one of my very dear friends that I’ve known since I was five, approach me with something similar. Back in the 90’s, however, we weren’t as connected as we are now. Smart phones hadn’t been invented, the internet was truly in it’s infancy. The horror of dialing long distance (and getting billed outrageously for it) was still a very real thing. So calling cards became the rage. Then, calling card pyramid schemes became the rage.
His family had fallen into that trap. I went to their family meeting essentially under the influence and asked a few bizarre, potentially inappropriate questions. After the meeting, I knew I wasn’t interested, but he was one of my oldest friends, so I gave him the $100 and wrote it off. I knew I was never going to do anything with it, and I knew that he wasn’t either.
He’s laid a ton of groundwork. Once I’ve figured out what was happening, I said a few things about how deregulation was good for the electricity industry. I wasn’t buying it. He’d put out hook after hook, after hook and I wasn’t biting. I don’t think he ever got the feeling that he was about to reel me in, and honestly I don’t think he was too concerned. His angle seemed to be the pitch. He enjoyed it. Signing people up would be a bonus. So eventually (it had been about an hour), I said, ” Well, I’m glad you got that stability you were looking for.” He complimented my shoes **** and I departed.
During one of his long stories, a barista walked in and said hello to him by name. By this time I knew what he was up to, so I jokingly asked if the guy had sold the barista electricity. He said, “No, I just come here all the time.” I thought to myself, “This guy just sits in Starbucks all day and pitches. What a job.” The more I thought about it, the more I wondered how much was truth, and then how much was the pitch.
Either way, he was good at it.
There are two lessons I feel like I need to impart here:
1) Energy deregulation is a good thing for lowering prices for consumers. Go to powertochoose.org if you live in Texas and want to see if you can lower your kw/hr amount. I did it, there’s nothing to be scared of, I even like how they now rate complaints against the provider. Really, it’s still the two or three main electrical providers providing the electricity, the companies are just subcontracting the electrical rate and administration of your account.
2) Always remember that if it sounds like it’s too good to be true, it normally is. Pitches where anyone makes money off of your involvement should be avoided at any cost. It’s hard to see this when you’re younger, but eventually you’ll learn the hard way. Hopefully it doesn’t sting too much.
* Accomplishing things also included buying an amplifier off of ebay that I didn’t really need. But it is pretty.
** Was the chair angled on purpose? I tend to think it was, this guy was THAT good.
*** Which is another reason why I don’t start conversations with strangers.
I remember hearing that Al was going to be VP and I was like, “Hey, isn’t his wife responsible for that lunacy that was the PMRC?” Nobody but us old age folks remember how dumb that witch hunt was.
While I was making the bi-weekly fried dough breakfast that my daughter adores, it dawned on me today that I’ve been making beignets off and on for years now. Spell checker still doesn’t like that word, and I have to double check every time I type it. “I” before “E” and the French…
I digress.
Since I’ve been making them for a while, I’ve got a few fast tricks that I use that makes prep and cleanup super, SUPER fast. If you’ve ever thought about making them (or have made them and regret the mess you made and haven’t since) hopefully these tips/tricks should help you out. I’m not going to cover all the steps – the box has those, I’ll try to highlight my speed tricks.
Note: While I have gotten WAY more proficient in the kitchen, I’m still using the Cafe Du Monde box mix. I haven’t tried all the homemade recipes (yet), I just happen to have the box mix down to a science, and there’s a LOT of ingredients in the homemade that I haven’t purchased yet. In short, I’m lazy and usually this a morning process.
Step 1:
Buy the Box Mix at the store or order it online. (Duh) Kroger here carries it locally. Also buy a candy thermometer if you want to go pro or plan on making them with some regularity. Candy thermometer also has other multiple uses in the kitchen.
Step 2:
Throw on some Mickey Baker (or any other suitable twangy guitar music). Make some espresso/coffee, you’ll be handling hot oil and need to be awake (and careful).
Step 3:
Decide if you need a full batch or a half batch. Full batch calls for 2 cups of mix and 7 ounces of water. If you’re trying this for the first time, try a half batch. A half batch will be 1 cup of mix and 3.5 ounces of water (yay math!). Make sure you try to get as close to 3.5 oz as possible. The more experience you have making them, you can be a little “off” and still compensate with mix. Half batch is usually good for one person. Full batch can also be for one person that eats a lot.
Step 4:
Warm up your oil. At this point I use a really deep pan, and a WHOLE bottle of Crisco Canola oil (1.5qt). I use this oil over and over for beingets specifically until it gets nasty – see steps for straining the gunk out at step 13. If you don’t plan on reusing it, make sure you pour the box recommended 1 or 2 inches of oil. The more oil you use, the more consistent the heat transfer is (and more consistently they cook). Here is also where the candy thermometer comes in. They recommend 370 degrees, and it’s extremely hard to measure that without a thermometer. If the oil is too cool, it takes longer to cook and they get harder from overcooking. Too hot and they get flash fried and burned within a matter of seconds (and you risk a house fire). Thermometer = good investment.
Step 5:
Put on the rubber/latex gloves. GLOVES? Yes, gloves. I buy the 100 pack at the store, they’re pretty useful all over the house when there’s something nasty that needs to be done and my dainty guitar playing fingers need protection (cue tiny violins). The dough mix and water get really sticky. REALLY sticky. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be a perfect water to mix ratio that makes it perfectly not-sticky, but in my experience (years), gloves keep you from getting sticky dough EVERYWHERE. The first time I made beingets, there was a sink full of dirty/dough-sticky plates, pans and utensils and doughy fingerprints EVERYWHERE. Cheater? Yes. Lazy? Yes, we have covered that.
Step 6:
Sprinkle some drops of water on your countertop (stay with me now). Tear off a small sheet of saran wrap (this becomes your prep surface) and lay it on the water droplets. The water makes the saran wrap stick to the counter. (Thanks go specifically to my ex-wife who taught me that one)
Step 7:
Sprinkle some flour on the saran wrap. Transfer your dough from the bowl to the saran wrap. (Make sure to put soapy water in your bowl so the leftover sticky mix doesn’t turn to concrete.) Your oil should still be heating up (it takes a while). Sprinkle more flour on the dough and push it down flat with your hand. The box recommends using a roller – and that’s good – but I don’t use one, it’s a pain to clean. I flatten it by hand until it’s about the recommended 1/8th inch (or so, I’ve never exactly measured it). The point of using a roller is to get out all the air bubbles. If you don’t use a roller your beignets can puff up in the middle. They don’t look as “pretty”. I go for speed/ease-of-cleanup. Pick your battles. At this point I’ve already removed the gloves (after flour).
Step 8:
Use a pizza cutter to cut your dough into squares. You can cut other fancy shapes (go you!), but the pizza roller is FAST and nothing sticks to it. I used to use the flat side of a butter knife, but it got messy.
Step 9:
Once the oil has warmed up, lay them in (carefully, remember this is boiling oil). For a half batch, I will typically throw them all in one by one. You’ll see the temp drop down (if you were smart enough to buy the thermometer) to about 340 or so, that’s fine. A full batch will suffer from “pan crowding” where the temperature drops too low, and you have to stop halfway through to let the oil heat back up. Throw away your saran wrap while they are cooking. Even with a full half batch, they will cook FAST. If you try to cook them to the same color you’ve seen them at Cafe Du Monde, you will probably have a burnt beignet. I suspect that they use their oil for quite a while and have hundreds of batches of beignets going through it. Fresh oil will have a different heat retention than well used oil. I tend to let them cook for about 2-3 minutes on one side, then flip them using tongs. Have a plate with paper towels ready for removal.
Step 10:
After less than probably 5-6 minutes, they’ll be done and you can remove them one by one onto your plate.
Step 11:
Using either a cake duster or a strainer (my favorite), pour your powdered sugar into it. Dust your beignets. I know, you’re saying, “But the ones in NOLA are COVERED in PILES of SUGAR!”. Yes, they are. This is a home process. You can put sugar however you like but you will be blowing through BAGS of powdered sugar at a time, and you’ll have huge piles of sugar on the plate when all the beignets are gone. Kind of a waste. I did it when I started, and it was fun for a while, then reality set in.
Blurry – sorry:
Step 12:
Turn off the burner that your oil is sitting on. Serve the beignets. Enjoy undeserved compliments for a process that a child could follow (as long as you didn’t burn yourself anywhere in the process).
Step 13:
Here’s the cleanup of the oil that’s fast and easy. If you plan on reusing your oil, read on. If you don’t plan on reusing it, dispose of it in a manner that is approved by your local city authority.
Since I reuse the oil, I originally bought a 100 pack of cone disposable coffee filters. Once the oil gets cool, get a funnel, put the coffee filter in the funnel and pour the oil through it into your original oil bottle. I typically mark the bottle with a sharpie so my other cooking endeavors don’t start tasting like beignets. This tends to take a while since oil kind of clogs up the filter and several passes have to be made.
Since I went pro (and have numerous coffee making gadgets all over my house), I have a reusable mesh coffee filter that serves the same purpose. I think you can pick those up at your local grocery store, I think that’s where I got mine. I don’t recommend really using this if you actually make coffee with it – I don’t own a drip coffee machine, so it doesn’t matter to me. Straining your oil will get out all the cooked flour and dough particles that didn’t stick to the beignets themselves and make your oil last longer. With the reusable mesh, the oil takes only one pass to strain (less than 3 minutes for a 1.5L bottle.)
So, there’s my steps for fast and easy prep cleanup. To tally the (minimal) dirty utensils:
Bowl
Spoon (mixing dough)
Pizza Cutter
Cooking Pan/Pot
Roller (optional)
Strainer (or powdered sugar duster)
Funnel
Tongs
Mesh Coffee Filter (optional)
Plate that you served the beignets on
My work situation went from “Dead Man Walking” to “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”. Since I don’t have an editor looking over my shoulder, I’ll assume it’s okay to mix my metaphors.
Regardless, I’ve been so busy that I only just got to sit down with an emergency beer and type out some thoughts about what I was up to recently.
The biggest and most entertaining (by far) was the trip to Tiki Oasis 2013. This year’s theme was Hulabilly, next year’s is Beatnik. They’ve been throwing this shindig for over ten years now, it’s massive.
http://tikioasis.com
First off, I’m going to admit that I’m stealing some of these images off the internet. Mostly because I’m really bad at taking a lot of pictures, but also I find I enjoy the event/occasions more if I’m not constantly thinking about how I’ll blog about it. (Lastly, there was a lot of rum involved). I’ll credit where appropriate.
I’ll admit, Tiki is not necessarily my favorite of all the twang sub-genres, but I was coaxed into it once I heard that Southern Culture on the Skids was headlining. I figured I couldn’t go wrong if they were playing.
Unfortunately, we had some plans on Friday that couldn’t be shifted, so our plan was to fly out early Saturday.
View in El Paso from one of the airport bars (I think):
We arrived on Saturday evening, and settled into our local retro-hotel, Kings Inn. I really liked this place. Here’s a view from the balcony (as usual in California, everything is stacked up). If I remember correctly, that weird purple Chrysler is our rental.
We got decked out pretty quick (starving….since I think my only food consumption was an olive and a celery stick conveniently dunked in tomato/vodka liquid combination in El Paso)
Arrived at the venue, and hooollleeee crap. This place is huuuuuge. They took over the WHOLE hotel. This pic is from last year, same deal. You can see some vendors in this shot, plenty of people, the walls of the hotel rising up to the sides (filled with Tiki enthusiasts). Some of the balconies were decorated, it was a huuge party.
http://modernkiddo.com
Here’s a pic from the actual event program. You can see where the stage is located in relation to the pool, and see how massive this event is. Did I mention it’s huge? There’s still two other pages with artist gallery and more vendors. Geez.
Our first pit stop was the hotel restaurant. If there was any issue I had with the entire event it might have been how overwhelmed the hotel staff was there. Everything else was smooth, but we were pretty starving.
I ran into the one and only Tavo Vega of Nocturne Pedals while we were eating. I probably wouldn’t have noticed, but his son was wearing a shirt bearing the logo of one of my favorite pedals, the Ubangi Stomp. Tavo totally hooked me up with a Ubangi shirt. If you’re a guitar player, check his stuff out, hand made stomp pedals in the US of A. I’ve got the Ubangi, the Fuzz Ray, the Seltzerado, and an original cola sparkle Brain Seltzer.
Since it was already Saturday, we had missed some Friday festivities, and were a little late for vendors – so we ran around and talked to some friends from Texas that were performing. Also began consuming rum.
Pre-Rum
Easily one of the largest events dedicated to low-brow-tiki-hot-rod that I’ve ever been to, Saturday evening’s official festivities was capped off with a performance by Southern Culture on the Skids. (Yes, one of my favorite bands)
At 10pm sharp, the band shut down with a quick “Daddy was a Preacher, Mama was a go-go girl”. Apparently Tiki Oasis has had some noise complaints in the past (the hotel is in a canyon, so I imagine the sound just ricochets up and down the entire length).
Then, the room parties started.
Wow. Just wow. Imagine hotel suites getting taken over for a room party, bands, booze, dancing….
I didn’t take any pictures, but they were FUN.
We sacked out pretty early after visiting some parties and hanging out.
Sunday, we decided to go check out some of San Diego. There are a lot of palm trees. And the Regal Beagle (which I thought was hilarious, although we didn’t go there)
At the beach, shoes full of sand.
One of the last non-Tiki-Oasis things we did was eat at Bali Hai. I can’t say enough about this place, the food is amazing. The decor is very polynesian, the food is superb. In my top five two places I’ve ever eaten. Nuff said.
We made it back to Tiki Oasis shortly before the vendors closed and picked up some swag. Caught Big Sandy, hung out with Tana the Tattooed Lady (winner of Miss Tiki Oasis 2013!), and gabbed with Dave Hartman.
Monday meant a little more sightseeing in SD, The Bettie Page store, the Gaslamp district, hanging out near some water. I think we were too wiped out to take many more pictures.
I got this one at Kings Inn though (weird? or bloated by alcohol? or both?)
All in all, a TON of fun, and would recommend as a destination trip for anyone looking to have a lot of fun.
There’s been a veritable parade of cats through my backyard in the last few months. Being surrounded on three sides by dog households (no issues, I love dogs) has forced the peace-loving cats into my yard.
There’s a lot of….er……cat-lovin’ going on in my yard after hours. And during hours. All hours even.
I wouldn’t really have a problem with this if the end result wasn’t a batch of kittens.
There seems to be a low amount of cat infertility in my neighborhood.
That being said, there’s one cat that already pushed some youngsters out. I happened to see her, and she’s pregnant AGAIN. So, I did what any law abiding citizen would do: I bought a live trap.
I set it up last Sunday – and caught my first offender overnight: FAT HEAD.
This little bastard has been around FOREVER. He’s got a fat head, which is probably why I call him FAT HEAD. He’s been knocking up the chickadees for a while now. He’s a crafty little guy, but apparently the temptation of a can of Nine Lives held more sway than he was ready for. He also has an ugly fat head, did I mention that? He’s one of the ugliest cats i think I’ve seen.
So, he got picked up on Monday. Yay, Animal Services! I heard he put up a fight, but I wasn’t there to see it.
On Tuesday morning, I saw the pregnant bitch camped out on one of my benches. So again, out went the trap.
Ta-Da!!
Offender: CAT SLUT
Cat Slut has been around a while. She’s skittish enough that she’s never been caught. I took some of the last round of her kittens to the animal shelter once they got old enough. Bitch. She’s pregnant now and I knew I had to catch her before she popped another litter. I called Animal Services and left a message that evening, and fed and watered her (as I did Fat Head) and they picked her up the following day.
My last few days have been blissfully cat-free in the backyard. Nobody tells you that you have to watch out for this shit when you buy a house.
I’m going to take a totally selfish moment here (as if my blog wasn’t a selfish bloated monument to myself as it was).
One of the cool things that I think I alluded to a while back, I got to be on-air at KNON, our local community radio station. Then not only did I get to get on-air, but I got to co-DJ! That means that I got to inflict the masses with a dose of the rockabilly madness I’m inflicted with. My playlist was very, very guitar heavy. Is that surprising?
Thanks to my rockin’ kid, I discovered KNON as she spun the dial one fine afternoon. Then I happened to catch Rockabilly Revue and was momentarily stunned as I realized that they played the kind of music that I dug. Rock-a-rock-a-rock-a…..*exhale*…….billy!
I’m going to leave my evidence here, but you heard it (it’s official), I’m welcome any time so you can be assured that I’ll be back (possibly more talkative too….)
I tried like hell to edit this file, but my supercomputer is still giving me buffer under-runs through Pro-Tools. Sorry.
