Baby Carriers of Supreme Awesomeness!

A good friend of ours, Amanda, is starting a home business selling baby carriers. Specifically she’s making copies/derivatives of an African baby carrier her mom brought home for her when she was in Africa.

Since I’m a pretty big fan of baby/parent contact, snuggling, breastfeeding and all that sentimental stuff, I thought I’d give her a shoutout here.

You can find her blog (which is very much a work in progress, I’m giving her what help I can) at babysgotback.wordpress.com

I know she’s going to be selling these things, and I think she’s going to be doing custom orders. I’m not sure what she’s asking, but you can probably send her an email ( littlesaintsatplay @ hotmail.com) and find out the details. Tell her I sent you.

Planting, Cleaning, Building, Oil-Changing

Well, I went for a ride with Greg and Kate today.  We hopped on the bikes and followed Greg’s parents out the the Yorston Farm and had Cinnamon Buns.  They have an event called Cinnamon Sunday each Sunday in May.  Buns are 1$ each and really, really yummy.  We took some curvy roads home. (Yorston Farm, incidentally, is where we went to the super awesome corn maze last year, and will be going again this fall.)

When I got home I changed my oil and filter in my bike.  Nice clean oil now, will be dirty in a day or two.  The curvy roads were fun, and Greg brought the extra pieces for my left fairing, so I can hopefully tighten up my dash and whatnot.  Sweetness.

Tom, Chris, Scott, Sam and I worked on putting together Ivy’s new swing set!  She loves it, it has one baby swing in the middle, two big kid swings, a slide and a teeter-totter.  The whole thing was enjoyed by all of the kids, because Mel brought her little ones, Ally and James over as well!  Super awesome sunny Sunday. (And it was Sun-Day as well, nice and warm at about 22*C)

Then we had some yummy barbecued pork chops, courtesy of Samantha.  Salad too – the first and only thing I ate today other than a cinnamon bun.  It was super to sit outside with the family and enjoy some dinner.

After dinner Samantha and I cleaned the barbecue, CLR and Scotch-Pads baby!  We scrubbed and hosed and sprayed and cursed and cleaned and rinsed and …. whew!  The BBQ should be nice and clean for next thing we cook on it – maybe ceder plank salmon tomorrow night.

I also managed to get our three herb pots planted, the three pepper plants and the extra herbs in the herb garden in the back.  I’m hoping my garlic chives and leeks do well back there too – the rubarb is still scrawny, it hasn’t put down good roots yet.  Maybe I should find some good food safe fertilizer to drop down back there.  We have parsley and something else new – can’t even remember what I planted.

Then, to finish off the night Chris, Sam and I put some Mario Kart Wii on and raced ourselves silly.  I have to get my sorry, sunburned butt to work in the morning, so I’m about to crash now.  See y’all later!

PS.

Welcome to summer time!

Recipes (Kebabs, Veggies)

Vijay and Sunita came over for dinner tonight and brought their baby girl Pia.  We cooked dinner for them on the grill.  Sam wanted me to archive the recipes I use (something I seldom do) so that we can remake them sometime.

Lemon Dill Chicken Skewers

• 1 cup Lemon Juice
• 1/4 cup Lime Juice
• 1/4 cup Ponzu Sauce
• 1/4 cup Grapeseed Oil
• 2 large garlic cloves, diced
• 1 Tbsp. Freeze Dried Dill
• 1 shallot, diced
• 1 tsp. Herbes de Provence
• Salt + Pepper

Marinate for 6 hours or so.  Does enough for probably 4 or 5 large skewers, I did two.  Dill could be increased and lemon decreased for more dill flavour.

Middle-Eastern-Ish Beef Kebabs

• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil)
• 1/4 cup Chai Tea concentrate (comes in a 1 liter tetra pack, like OJ does)
• 4 or 5large garlic cloves, diced
• 1 large piece ginger, diced (about 5 tablespoons, same as garlic)
• 1 large shallot, diced
• Dash Worcestershire Sauce
• 1tsp. ground middle eastern spice blend (coriander, caraway, aniseed, jamaica pepper, black and white peppercorns)
• 3 Tbsp. Yellow Curry Powder
• 1tsp. chilli powder
• 1 Stick Fresh ground cinnamon and
• 1tsp. dried chilli pepper (I did mine in a mortar and pestle)
• Salt and Pepper to taste

About the same as above.  Did 2 skewers of diced inside round steak.  Could do 4 or 5 easy.  Marinate 6 hours or so.  Curry could be increased for more Indian style taste.

Veggie Stir Fry of Barbecue Awesomeness!

• 1/3 cup ketchup
• 1/8 cup Thai chili sauce
• 1/8 cup kikkoman stir-fry sauce
• 2 cloves garlic, diced
• 1tsp. barbecue spice (chili, garlic, onion, chipotle)
• Salt + Pepper

I did these on a barbecue wok.  Carrot, Red Pepper and Celery.  I put the sauce on in the last minute, so as not to char it too badly with the open flame through the perforated bottom of the wok.

Allowed to Ride!

Born to be wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiild!

I passed my Motorcycle Skills Test today.  That means I have had the supervisor and skill restrictions removed from my licence.  I can now legally exceed 60 km/h and drive without a supervisor.

I have my drivers test on Thursday at 10:15am.  I need to get some practice in before then – I’m hoping this head cold pulls a vanishing act.

I’m still hoping to take a motorcycle course sometime soon.  This can get me commuting though.  Props to all those who gave me a hand with practice time etc. when I needed it!

Yes, I am a geek.

Today I managed to get PGP encryption working with my gmail account. I had to install WinPT and PGP on my computer and generate a key pair. I have a private key, and a public key. I encrypt things with my private key, and anyone who has my public key can decrypt it. Decrypting it also proves that it was my private key that encrypted it – so if you got encrypted email from me you would know that it was me that sent it.

To get it to work with my gmail I had to install firegpg, which you can get at the link.

This is what a block of PGP encrypted text looks like.

—–BEGIN PGP MESSAGE—–
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32)
Comment: http://getfiregpg.org

hQIOA9FJ9FpNoFGwEAgAmtq5XTl04bP

BeFhNBUNhPbx33R30Nvgs3BlOMz/P9VNy
cnB8eEVanB0J2gT08T5OyGsgdgs5WbshQ0QyH2LdcpFy+1wzx0eYyXfXRedIuW/m
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f12W+V/KOriAMhImPhs/M5ntEthW7/UzqZqbAG8/25JkJG0pwv3ZBmPZMm56SALd
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/2rFM37oPP1Yb+Fwq/c1yHvD4GZNYkpXQQyBu9z5MZXbxyWeffZNpK26vMSssa8n
HlP3iVtQzLAWzsBxNV/rFvtCjiAMfGSU3BM9ZDkVeagjXc/kItGP0/hnwK1FpGAO
BJ4SUe39eQYQBRUyuZt/QNoUGHDCeElmrBc4VFwuD5QWwS5nXA2lGY0lWrsdIHmS
Qj7QrE3NruZuc8PUFQX7vN9EIUobIBZrI+TVjrPHEOvZ5PJ9GbgjXP0+ucL0/aWW
9NJdmPEeIMp3XnJFeU/PJUwH9BtKtrdKk0aYDDPtjdYSsIDneVpTxsFRLsm9BWjj
YC/YLy5GZprok8PfqVU19QLpHG0v16ERyU2SVB3ztKfo
=G3YD
—–END PGP MESSAGE—–

So you can see, it’s not readable. The following text is a decryption from that email.

This is a test of PGP.–
http://jeffandsamplus2.wordpress.com
- The Family Blog
http://runfatboyrun.wordpress.com
- My Fitness Blog

“One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.”
- AA Milne

“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.” – Douglas Adams

In case anyone is geeky enough to want to exchange encrypted email with me, this is my public key:

pub 1024D/E6707F9E 06/05/2008 Jeff Closs <suprspi@gmail.com>
Primary key fingerprint: C60F 0789 3667 C363 193B EFA7 5CCF 483F E670 7F9E—–BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—–
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32) – WinPT 1.2.0

mQGiBEggvhIRBACTz5ef3AU40+0RrDdPCewsiDuHVxxd5FQveTRaIwiwTKekXTCv
dKoXBXQ2MVrmElkleQimAG/yrW6i6jKVHSlSRGp05xDjXKxy9T6lsQfos8U3CZBZ
8CrYFv0u0I9DUxqxda3xh85+k7JYqU/jkhWd+Juz5YyDJxsIzasdNvcMSwCgg0d1
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lWbboxYv1dgw0NXVTUwjoKWL1lj3iUADD0ok92A96iINk51nRbaLLZTGJLmkAfKW
MckIA/4ncNZY10/AG89WA1XWcDGdaM6tCEm+bDLRTksfoCes2RiVoAKDtkRGi1s6
M2jy7V+UdGL3fass4PIUAOojMvw7lQtVHbNgL6Xqir/D0TP0+ZdoSHaOIRELIqsZ
/xBSBviihJxEUBei0BAo6EoCuqWQ4rCTGeTerFbS+of5QMptArQeSmVmZiBDbG9z
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nM8DSG5/OUcqpd8zXlcEVvKo9V1wyn7Lx6/k6FzR9QEBX2bMAAuMnXaXbipArtn4
MEdQMWwDBLQSxBs/C7mdLO9hTHcoTIKXNQr3N6UPsaRL7dCZjjPZNHZG1JJb7Oxd
zp1A24XCyFQzOMYzdgNrVLiqRtZ9iAqaMns8bLLx9TMTsdCI82geMouj6Yl+Oimi
yQ0Y98gnSEB2E/Um8df31noHmfV0TKZYUfQxntt3oaiIsISGclYZrK4LVpUpS9BM
romRfiMu3S+Ndh0OSJhc8/jnYuKz7HrPUwH3OvSL8iujTE2ZEcrLomcIS8SMugTI
+0sAAwUH/30MU7D6EZCkvcdkFT0OOsW/2qMpZPxKeXx3DNn/aiB7rj2l8Gazu2Us
42yZO13460XMW2mGrKeIhCjCaPehb5SJ7ULkctoTKcPvL6sNirYQN2JrGB+ZGvSP
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fAzaN0d9G8OgDBpTJBottB7Nf0h/NLrpKl5jH8s2ARm3ztYX7Azys2vtOLqVlo6l
2AS0+SkY7o11jXV3ayESrg6xkNE+WsC1FKqvbnjyYaF2RJESEQoPCKqKVgsX5R5h
xSSy9kpF0haCPnOBb9/bHLfzEy1hMZiISQQYEQIACQUCSCC+EgIbDAAKCRBcz0g/
5nB/niWKAKCCopUNNvjewCmh6T/BJw2X9K/MDwCeLhco1itWN0LLkH6gFrdW0NbC
Ehw=
=vEcb
—–END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK—–

So, there we go. My geekery for the day. If you have any questions, feel free to comment away.

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

This is the space that I’ll come back and use to plug Cory Doctorow’s book, Little Brother.  It’s hard to give it a strong enough reccomendation, but I’ll come back and try.

PS.  You can download it for free from his site at the link up above.  You have no excuse not to read this book.

PPS.  Cory Doctorow is Canadian.  For what it’s worth.  To me, that’s a bit.

PPPS.  This is a story about being a geek, and a bit of a social misfit.  If you’re reading this, there’s a pretty solid chance you will connect with the protagonist.

PPPPS.  If you are somehow in charge of getting books into the hands of kids, this might be one to get onto the young adult shelves.  *hint, hint*

PPPPPS.  This is a book I want my kids to read when they’re 13 or older.  I may force it on them, but I know the old horse and water adage.  That’s ok, I’ve got 11 years to figure out how to get them to read it, starting with buying a couple of copies.