Pi Day! March 14, 2009

It’s totally pi day! Word up!

It’s also Ashley’s birthday, so Ivy is super excited because she gets to go to a princess party.

Was up early this morning beginning an outline for a story – it it something worth finishing and trying to get published? Or like every other project I start will I get halfway there and lose interest. We’ve yet to see.

Back? March 11, 2009

After a long hiatus following the wedding and honeymoon I appear to be back. We all know I’m not that motivated though, so we’ll see.

Lots of things are happening. Samantha and I have decided to put our house on the market – sell low, buy low. We figure we’ll work out on the upside if we take a small loss on what we could potentially make on this house, and buy a bigger one cheaper than we could in a better market as well. Trading up so to speak. We will need another bedroom soon anyway, right?

I have all sorts of ideas going round in my head about trying to write something again – we’ll see if that pans out.

The cool thing I forgot to blog about before my hiatus was that I was interviewing for a job with the School District. That didn’t turn out – but I hear they’re hiring again.

Um…think that’s it for now.

Coffee tastes good at 7am. ;)

Ciao for now.

Dinner, Games and Songs! October 10, 2008

Well – dinner was pretty awesome.

Then we played Rock Band. \m/

Now Chris, Emille, Samantha and I are sitting around the living room playing Singstar on the PS2.  I figured I’d share a couple of the songs we’re singing, and you can draw your own conclusions of what our teenage years were like.  It’s the 90’s edition – so this is all stuff we all listened to during high school and elementary school.

 

First – Samantha

Then Chris…

Then Emille…. is upset that there is no Aqua on the disk.  In the meantime though he says this one represents him ok….

 

And finally – yours truly!

 

 

So – watcha think?

 

*Note.  No alcohol was consumed in the making of this evening.  The occasional note may have been harmed.

Some Quick Updates October 10, 2008

Yep – just some quick ones.

1) Something interesting is happening.  I can’t talk about details yet, but I’ll let you all know when I know the final details – probably Wednesday afternoon.

2) As you probably know, Chris is back and out of the hospital.  He’s staying with us for a while, while he recovers.  We’re pumping calories into him at an astronomical rate.  Hopefully we can have him good and fat soon.

3) I’ve signed up on sparkpeople.com  It’s a fitness and nutrition tracking site.  I’m trying to sort of diet = 1850 calories or less per day.  So far it’s going pretty good. 

4) In that regard I’ve recently put a post up on my fitness blog – runfatboyrun.wordpress.com  I’m planning to add to it more regularly again.

5) I’m writing this on my laptop with no internet connection.  If all goes well this should publish when I get to an internet connection later in the day.  What fascinating modern times we live in.

6) Going to Kamloops soon.  Have an appointment with a specialist about my back disease.  I’m hoping for some sort of miracle drug that takes away my pain and lets me sleep full nights again.  That would be cool. 

7) Spore is pretty cool.  I’ve been playing offline only in  my “liberated” version.  Now that EA/Maxis has said that they’ll be changing the copy protection to allow five activations and are putting in place a tool to “de-authorize” activated computers (much like iTunes) I’ll consider buying it if I don’t get it for my birthday.

8) Which is coming up soon!  I’m getting oldish.

9) Dylan is officially a 6mo.  That’s pretty cool.  She’s loving real people food – although she only gets to gum bread and rice crackers and stuff to death.  The occasional bit of rice cereal.  Y’know – baby stuff.

10) People are coming over tonight.  It’s officially a wedding planning exercise, garnished with a fresh beef roast and veggies.  I think Scott is planning to add a topping of Rock Band Fun after we get the work part done.  Since Ivy pooped in the potty it’s also going to be her potty pooping party we’ve been promising her since we started this whole potty training affair.  And what an affair it’s been!\

11) Ivy pooped in the potty!!!!!  YAY! Word! Dude! Party Time! Excellent! (guitar solo) Sweeeeeeeet!

12) I rode my bike to work today.  Chilly.  I had to scrape frost off the seat, put on a scarf, and wear ski-doo gloves.  It was pretty cold, but once you get to 100km/h at least your helmet unfogs!  Awesome!  I’m guessing this will be one of my last commutes this year on the bike, and prolly one of the last times I get to ride before I have to winterize the little baby and put it away for the winter.  Sad me.

I miss my Fiancee September 30, 2008

Fiancee?  One “e” or two?

Either way, I miss her.  She’s been in Kamloops with Chris since last week, Wednesday or Thursday if I recall correctly.  We went down to see them on the weekend, and that was good.

Chris is looking way better.  His weight is up.  He’s less yellow – not Bart Simpson anymore, or atleast, not as badly.

He’s in Vancouver for a surgery today – ERCP – something to do with inflating baloons in his liver to expand the bile ducts.  I heare some surgeons are so adept with the tools they use that they can tie tiny baloon animals inside a patients bile ducts.  I hope the one he has is one of those.  Chris could use a miniature elephant keeping his ducts open.

Anyway – I miss Sam.  We got our basement windows done, which means that I lost my phone service until I rewire the jack that used to be mounted on the old window sill.  I also seem to have lost my cellular telephone somewhere, which means that even if Sam called me I can’t answer.  I wrote her an email, but at the time it takes for an email to trudge it’s way down the intertubes to Kamloops I might as well be sending smoke signals.  Or something almost but not quite entirely unlike that.

I think she’s coming home on Friday.  Maybe Thursday night if all goes well and she’s so desperate to come home that she can’t sleep.  We’ll see

If you’re reading this Sam – I miss you.  I love you.  Come back home to me soon, and safely. (oh, and bring Dylan.  Ivy and I miss her. :) )

Homeward bound September 23, 2008

I’m in the van, heading home from Kluskus.  It was a pretty good trip really.  Travel time is 2.5 hours either way, and we managed to spend only 4 hours onsite in the village.  We fixed the Internet, got about 12 computers networked, set up a couple printers and overall tidied things up.

 

I’m not sure how Chris is doing, or whether he’s been transferred out of Quesnel yet.  I’ll know by the time I get this posted though, as I won’t have Internet for another hour or so.

New Laptop September 22, 2008

This thing is pretty sweet.  It’s an HP convertable tablet PC.  That means we can flip the screen around and use it as a tablet, or use it as a normal laptop.  It’s got a 12" LCD, 3GB of RAM, 250GB of hard drive space and a decent little onboard video card.

 

I’ll be taking it to Kluskus tomorrow for work, then Sam will be taking it to the ‘loops when she goes down with Chris.  It’s got other fancy stuff, but for now, that’s all you need to know.

 

PS – if you’re in q-town and you want to go see Chris I suggest you do so right away – he’s going down to Kamloops soon, and good.  Hopefully the hospital down there can get him better faster than they’ve been able to so far here.

 

Ciao for Now

Toy Run August 22, 2008

Motorcycle Toy Run (Benefits Salvation Army I think?)

I’m going to try to do two of these this year.

The first is Quesnel’s.  Sunday September 7th.  Starts at Sylvia’s Cafe and finishes at the Quesnel Museum.

The second is Prince George.  Sunday September 28th.  Need more details.

This is mostly just a reminder to myself, but if anyone is intersted in riding with me, just drop me a line.

These should be fun.  I’ll be trying to get together with Greg and Kate in PG for the PG one.  Maybe they’ll come down for this one.  My motorcycle instructor, Ian, whom I rode the Poker Ride with is planning on doing both as well – and has offered to caravan up to PG with me that sunday.

Dinner….Mmmmm August 20, 2008

Tom and Hilma are coming over tonight.  Hilma’s picking up some meat somewhere for me to cook.  I’m thinking of making a sweet and spicy rub.

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1tbsp chilli powder
• 1tbsp smoked paprika
• chipotle powder (don’t know if I have any)

I’m also thinking of making caesar from scratch, like with the egg yolks and anchovies and everything.  I’ll update with how it goes.

We all scream for… August 15, 2008

How to Make Ice Cream

from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Have you ever had a really bad craving for ice cream? Instead of running down to the store for an ice cream fix, check your cupboards. If you have access to things like salt, ice, milk, sugar, and plastic bags, consider yourself in business. This article will cover several different methods for making ice cream at home. This is also a great activity to do with children of any age and makes for an engaging classroom activity when learning about the states of matter – it shows a liquid changing to a solid by freezing, and then while they’re eating it, the solid changes back to a liquid by melting.

Ingredients

Makes one serving:

• 1/2 cup milk(any type), cream or half & half
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract or chocolate syrup
• lots of ice
• rock salt
  • can be purchased in nearly any grocery store
  • may be labeled as “cubed sodium chloride”
  • you can also make your own rock salt from regular table salt

Steps

Plastic Bag Method
This is good for making individual servings of ice cream to be eaten promptly after making. The video below shows a slightly different recipe but still instructs on how to make ice cream with a sandwich bag.

1. Mix sugar, milk or half & half, and flavoring in a bowl, then seal it in a quart-sized plastic bag.
2. Take roughly two quarts of ice (crushed if possible) and place it into the gallon-sized bag with rock salt. Ideally, the gallon bag will be roughly half full with the ice and salt mixture.
3. Place the sealed quart-sized bag with the ingredients into the gallon-sized bag. Make sure the bags stay sealed! Do not allow the contents to mix at any time. If the bags don’t seal sufficiently, use duct tape to seal the top of both bags to ensure they don’t open during shaking.
4. Gently agitate, massage, and shake the bags for about ten to fifteen minutes. In this amount of time the contents of the quart (smaller) bag should start to turn into solid ice cream.As you agitate the two bags, it is important that you are mixing the contents of the inner bag, but you don’t want to be so aggressive that you burst the inner bag or cut it on the ice (double-bagging should prevent this).If your hands get uncomfortably cold, use a towel or an old t-shirt to hold the bags as you massage them; they will be quite cold and might become slippery with accumulated condensation. Consider using gloves or massaging while holding onto the top seal if a towel or similar cloth is not available.
5. Remove the small bag from the large bag. Scoop the ice cream from the small bag and enjoy!

Pot-Freezer Method
This is how ice cream was typically made before modern refrigeration, using ice cut from lakes and ponds. Hand-cranked ice cream machines are a variation of the sorbtierre (a covered pail with a handle attached to the lid) which is a French adaptation of the pot-freezer method.

1. Put the ice cream ingredients in a bowl.
2. Put the bowl in a tub filled with ice and salt. Make sure the ice and salt mixture doesn’t spill over the edges or into the bowl.
3. Mix the ingredients of the bowl vigorously. The salty ice water will absorb heat from the mixture, bringing it below the freezing point of water and turning the mixture into ice cream.[1] It’s important to mix as thoroughly as you can to prevent the formation of ice crystals. If you can, use a whisk or better yet, a hand-held mixer.

Freezer Method[2]
This method works best with a custard-based recipe, because the result will be much smoother. Since it involves a good bit of waiting, however, it may not be the most immediately gratifying for kids.

1. Pour the ice cream mixture into a deep baking dish, or bowl made of plastic, stainless steel or something durable in the freezer.
2. Put it in the freezer for 45 minutes.
3. Check the mixture. When it starts to freeze at the edges, take it out and stir it vigorously with a spatula or whisk until all the ice crystals are broken up. If you can, use a whisk or a hand-held mixer.
4. Check and stir every 30 minutes until the mixture turns into ice cream. This might take 2-3 hours.

Coffee Can Method
This is very similar to the bag method, except instead of using two bags, you use two coffee cans, one bigger than the other.

1. Put the ice cream mixture in the smaller coffee can. Seal tightly.
2. Put the smaller coffee can in the big coffee can along with ice and rock salt. Seal the large can tightly.
3. Shake the large can vigorously for about 10 minutes. Kids can roll or throw it around, but make sure the cans are sealed well and do it outside, just in case. Check the small to see if the mixture has turned into ice cream yet. If you see ice crystals forming, stir or whisk. Continue shaking, rolling, or throwing until ice cream is formed.

Ball Method[3]
This can only be done with a commercial product that mixes ice cream within a specially made ball with two chambers.

1. Fill the ice end with with ice and 1/2 cup of rock salt (3/4 cup if using the larger size ball) and close by hand.
   • Standard ice cubes may not fit. You might need crushed ice.
   • You’ll probably need at least 10 ice trays’ worth of ice.
2. Pour the ice cream mixture into the end with a metal cylinder. Leave an inch (2.5cm) at the top for expansion and close by hand.
3. Shake, roll, and pass the ball around for 10-15 minutes. The ball will probably be heavier than you expect.
4. Open the ice cream end with the plastic wrench that comes with the ball. Scrape the sides of the cylinder with a plastic or wooden spoon (metal will scrape the cylinder). Close the lid by hand.
   • Since the chamber is narrow and deep, stirring the ice cream might be difficult. If necessary, use the wooden handle of a spoon or spatula.
5. Check the ice end. Open the lid with the plastic wrench. Pour out any water and add more ice and up to 1/3 cup of rock salt. Close the lid by hand.
6. Shake, roll, and pass the ball around for 5-10 minutes.
7. Check the ice cream. Repeat the above steps as needed, or eat the ice cream as is.
   • When you pour the ice cream out, be careful that it doesn’t spill into the raised decorative ledges and tight crevices; these may be very difficult to clean later on, especially if you use chocolate chips.
   • The ice cream tends to be “soupy” in the middle and solid along the edges.

Tips

• For older students, have them connect the ice cream making process to colligative properties.[4]
• If you can, use larger salt crystals (e.g. rock salt). Larger salt crystals take more time to dissolve in the water around the ice, which allows for even cooling of the ice cream.
• If you prefer a lower calorie ice cream that is not as rich, use milk instead of heavy cream and artificial sweetener instead of sugar. You can also experiment with other types of milk.
• Flavor combinations are almost limitless. Chocolate syrup is a basic option. Don’t be afraid to add your favorite fruits or nuts! Various flavor extracts that are available in your grocery store’s baking section can lead to more exotic variations. Try combining mint extract with chocolate, or adding small chocolate chips.
• If you use blueberries, crush them first. Whole blueberries will become little rocks rather than mixing nicely with the ice cream.
• For large groups, mix several quarts of ice cream mix and divide it into bags, rather than having each individual child mix their own (that gets messy).

Things You’ll Need

• spatula, whisk, or hand-held mixer
• bag method: one gallon-size zip bag and one quart-size zip bag
• pot-freezer method: bowl and tub or hand-cranked ice cream maker
• freezer method: deep baking dish, or bowl made of plastic, stainless steel or something durable in the freezer
• coffee can method: two coffee cans, one fitting loosely into the other
• ball method: ice cream ball

Related wikiHows

• How to Make Lime Cream Sherbet
• How to Scoop Ice Cream
• How to Make Taiwanese Ice Cream
• How to Stop Brain Freeze
• How to Make an Ice Cream Cake
• How to Make Hard Chocolate for Ice Cream Topping
• How to Make a Knickerbocker Glory
• How to Make Strawberry Sorbet
• How to Make Caramel Apples

Sources and Citations

1. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream
2. ↑ http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2007/07/making_ice_crea_1.html
3. ↑ http://icecreamrevolution.com/howtouse.html
4. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colligative_property

• Product customer reviews – Source of advice on how to use ice cream ball.

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world’s largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Make Ice Cream. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.