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In a few short hours we celebrate the Holy Birth of Little Baby Calendar, who went on to become Pope Gregory, as well as Emperor of Prussia.

Little Baby Calendar was a young prodigy, much like Mozart, only smarter. Legend has it that when Little Baby Calendar was very young (they didn’t know how old he was, since years hadn’t been invented yet), he invented time. Then, continuing his master work, he went on to invent days, weeks, months and years. In his playful times (since he was a baby, after all) he invented leap years. As he grew older, he invented hours, minutes and seconds, and dictated to the world the proper times to eat the daily meals, and when to have tea. Before this, people just shoved food into their mouths whenever they were hungry, instead of using the civilized concept of the meal, as we do today.

So as you can see, we all owe a lot to Little Baby Calendar, and if we continue to celebrate his birthday once a year, on the beginning of each of his years, he will bless us, and not rain fire upon us. For he who takes Little Baby Calendar’s name in vain shall suffer the ultimate curse of the 16 hour work-day.

Now its time to get drunk, bye.

Ahh, Thanksgiving. The time when we celebrate a feast beginning a few years of peace initiated by the Wampanoag people, and summarily ended by the European settlers.

Have a good day, remember what you are thankful you have, and how you’d feel if it was all taken away from you.

As Billy says, “i hope everyone eats a lot and has their land taken away from them”.

Here are some photos of the baby fish that were born the other day. They are quite cute, though their eyes are far too large for their little bodies. They are also quite difficult to photograph. As soon as I lock the focus in, they swim around and leave the focal point. If you thought making little human children sit still was hard, try making 50 baby fish sit still. Not possible, as far as I can tell.

Click for larger image

Click for larger image

You probably know about the four basic tastes, sour, sweet, salty and bitter. But were you aware that there was a fifth? Just now coming into understanding by the scientific community, a taste known only as “Umami” has been understood by Japanese chefs for over 100 years. Translating roughly to ‘savory’, the taste is described as a sort of richness, or meatyness. It fills our mouth with satisfying savory goodness. As you can see, it is hard to describe.

Different taste systems evolved to help us get the nutrients we need. Our sweetness receptors let us know when we are eating enough sugars. We crave them because we need it. Salty sensors let us know if we are getting the required minerals with our food. Sour and bitter detectors help us identify potentially hazardous substances, such as poisonous fruits or bugs, which are likely to be acidic or alkali. Umami is our ‘protein’ taste. It is the flavor of free amino acids, particularly glutamates. In fact, MSG (monosodium glutamate), the sodium bound version of the glutamate molecule, was originally invented to enhance umami flavor. It makes sense that we would have taste receptors for umami, because our bodies need these amino acids, since they are the basic building blocks for proteins our body needs. To detect them and find them ‘delicious’ helps us get enough.

Umami is hard to describe in part because it is hard to identify compounds that are umami tasting. Salt is easy, we have pure table salt (sodium chloride) to taste. For sweet we have pure sugars, like glucose, fructose and sucrose. For bitter, alkaloids like those found in coffee are easily found. For sour, we have the acidic juice of a lemon. The numerous compounds that all contribute to umami are not as well understood, and not as readily isolated.

For comparison, imagine if pure sugar did not exist, and the sweetest things we had were carrots and milk. In that case, ‘sweetness’ would be as difficult to pinpoint and describe as umami is. Definitely there, and definitely playing part, but difficult to separate from its surroundings. There are few things in which umami is the dominant taste, and hence it is hard to clearly identify in the mind. But once aware of its presence, you can begin to taste more discriminatorily, looking for the similar taste in various umami rich foods.

If you wish to taste umami, look to fermented products. One of the richest sources of umami is fermented fish sauce, common in asian cooking. The sauce has a terribly pungent odor that feels like getting slapped in the face with a fermented anchovy. However, when cooked, the odors all cook off, and you are left with a very large quantity of amino acids, giving a strong umami flavor to the food. This accounts for much of the richness and savory flavor in what would be an ordinarily bland Thai dish. Umami is also found in some wines, aged cheeses, fermented soy sauce, aged meats, mushrooms, and certain vegetables, like asparagus. If you’ve ever wondered why anchovy is in caesar salad dressing, then now you know the answer. Simple vegetables take on a much richer and complex flavor with just a little umami. This is why caesar is one of the most popular salad dressings in the US.

This evening, as an experiment with umami, Barb, Dennis, Berg and I made a batch of Pad Thai noodles. Normally fish sauce is used (to give an umami flavor to normally not-very-savory tofu, noodles, and onion), but as a vegetarian, I needed another source of umami. We experimented with mushroom sauce, which is a salty, umami rich sauce derived from mushrooms. Used like fish sauce, it is very pungent, but leaves behind a rich flavor that is quite delicious.

Next time you are cooking a meal, think about your sources of umami, meats, aged cheeses, mushrooms, fermented sauces like fish sauce, mushroom sauce, fermented soy products like tempeh and soy sauce, and vegetables like asparagus and to a lesser degree, tomato. For a good non-asian example, imagine the goodness arising from pasta, cooked tomato sauce (cooking brings out much of the umami flavor in the tomato), and aged parmesan or romano cheeses. What would be pretty ordinary flavors come alive with the rich, savory flavor of umami. A little knowledge of this newly understood flavor can make your cooking experience much more effective.

Eat with pleasure.

Yesterday, Wesley Willis passed away (Rolling Stone Article), succumbing to Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia at the age of 40. An independent musician and native of Chicago, he astounded and amazed the indie rock world with his absurd, brazen, and comical songs, first played on the street with only his voice an an old Technics keyboard. His unique style was a favorite of groups like the Dead Kennedys and Smashing Pumpkins, with his biggest fan being Jello Biafra himself.

He will be remembered as a hilarious and entertaining aspect of punk rock. He embodied persistence, individuality, and the spirit of doing what you love, no matter what people think about it. Rock on Chicago, rock on Wesley Willis.

Tonight Berg, Caroline, Barb, Madalene and I fixed some nice pasta and enjoyed it with a glass of Chianti. It was very pleasant.

Saturday night however, Berg and I engaged in another sort of fun. On a whim, we went out and bought airbrushes and some paint. The airbrushes were aquired at Harbor Freight Tools for 5 bucks a piece. A few more dollars for fittings and paint, and we had them connected to my air compressor, and were doodling on a big piece of oriented strain plywood in the back yard. After some more practice, our next project will be to paint my bicycle. The bike is good, but it has no paint, since someone decided to remove all the paint with a sander long before the bike entered my possession. The frame is aluminum, so the lack of paint isn’t a problem, but it presents a nice blank canvas for some airbrushing. Disassembly will be necessary in order to protect vitals such as brakes and drive train, but the drivetrain needs serious work anyway, and the hubs all need rebuilding, so those can be done at the same time.

If you’d like to see our oh-so-pretty practice board, here are the photos. You can tell that we only have two colors of paint so far. Black and blue. However, flourescent colors are going to be purchased for the bike.

Click for larger image

Click for larger image

I had a strange dream last night as I was drifting off to sleep. The dream was contained within a brief episode of hypnagogia (also spelled hypnogogia, I’m uncertain which is correct), which is the transition point between waking reality and dream that occurs as you are falling asleep in the evening. In this state, you are still awake, but your brain may begin dreaming a bit early, giving vivid and lucid dreams that slide in and out of your mind as your brain shifts gears into sleep. Sometimes this can also result in a sudden ‘falling’ sensation as your perceptions shift between your waking self, and your dreaming self. If you ever experience little ‘starts’ as you are falling asleep, causing you to twitch because you suddenly felt like you were falling, you were probably experiencing a form of hypnagogia.

The dream itself was of me reading a book in bed. In reality, I had recently been reading one, but it wasn’t in my hands anymore. The strange thing though was that it was a pop-up book with 3-D pictures of women. The women were wearing old fashioned clothing, and were posing as if modeling it. I started to get disturbed when I realized that every single woman had the face of former president Dwight D. Eisenhower. The founder of our national interstate highway system was smiling back at me from numerous images of posing pop-up women. It was very strange, but the dream ended as soon as it began. The whole dream was probably encased within a less than 60 second block, but it felt like a long time. It was very real, and I experienced a strong sense of confusion as I slid out of the dream and back into a more wakeful mindset, and I realized that I was no longer holding the book. I tried to remember where I had set it down, when I realized that I didn’t have a pop-up book of Ike Eisenhower wearing women’s clothing, not to mention the fact that such a book probably doesn’t exist anywhere.

P.S. If you have such a book, or know where I could find one, I’d be much appreciative.

Today Madalene and I are going hiking up at Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park, which is apparently a very nice place. It was formed when erosion wore deep tracks in volcanic rock, creating an ‘enclosed’ area of swimming, hiking and fun. We’ve never been there, but we have gotten several strong recommendations from reliable sources, so we decided to go check it out for a day.

Today I had to flee my house for 5 hours while a man came and sprayed deadly poison around my apartment complex. I drove to Dan and Caroline’s house, but no one was home, so I went to the UPS place and picked up a few packages. Then I went shopping. But I still had to wait two hours for my house to be safe enough to enter. I went back home, ran inside holding my breath, grabbed my umbrella and ran back out. Armed with the umbrella to protect me from the rain, I walked down to Cicero’s for a pint of Fat Tire. When I arrived and ordered my pint, about 3/4 of the pint got poured before the keg ran out. The bar-lady gave me the 3/4 pint and said, “Here, sip on this for a minute while I go change the keg.” I sipped on the mini-pint for a few minutes until she was able to go change out the keg, after which she poured me a full pint. I was only charged for one pint of course, which is one of the nice things about a friendly pub. If a keg runs out, you’ll probably be on the receiving end of some free beer. Of course, this means I drank more than I had been intending to. Good thing I walked. Then, having waited long enough to enter my home, I walked back, opened all the windows, and had some food.

I need to go over to Billy’s to test some video stuff for this weekend, and then I would like to go see Caroline and Dan and probably Barb over at Caroline’s place. However, the beer I consumed requires a delay, during which I will make this post and do other crap around the house until I am sober enough to drive to Billy’s. Oh yeah.

Tonight I’m going to go see the new Matrix movie. I’ve staunchly avoided reading any spoilers or reviews on it, and while I know some people didn’t think it was that great, I’d like to see it with as few preconceptions as possible. I’m seeing it at the Chase Park Plaza Cinema which is a very nice theater with stadium seating. They even sell beer there. Its a classy venue, and relatively close to our house.

Also, Barb, if you read this, you should email me your phone number so we can hang out. I have no way of contacting you right now! There is chilling that needs to be done, and snacks that need to have us get them on, etc.

I discovered late last night that a huge tree branch had fallen from the tree that Madalene’s car was parked under. It landed right over the rear window, shattering it, and crushing part of the window supports. At first foul play was a possibility, but with nothing missing, and chipped wood everywhere, and a broken off branch stump about 20 feet up the tree, directly over the car suggested otherwise. A neighbor confirmed the suspicion; she had seen the large branch sitting next to, and partially on top of, her car earlier. The city is very quick to clean up the branches, but is unwilling to send people out to trim the frail and brittle old trees.

Damn you wind! Damn you for crushing Madalene’s car! The same thing happened to our neighbor in October, so she gave me a tip on who to contact to repair the damage. For now, however, I have to take the car to get some plastic to cover it up, since it looks like rain today. Madalene is still out of town, and won’t be back till tomorrow night, either. I’m not sure what to do, in terms of insurance… I’m going to try not to move the car or clean up yet, in case they need to send an adjuster out to look at it.

Every so often the thought crosses my mind to get a PVR like a Tivo or ReplayTV, or even a homebrew PC to do the job. I imagine all the cool features, and how people hack them to get new features, and pull the drives out to replace them with better ones, and so on and so forth. Then I come upon the crushing realization that because I don’t watch TV, that it wouldn’t make any sense for me to have a device that lets me record it. I can envision one of two scenarios occuring.

The first is that I would get it, set it up, and beam over it for a few hours, then forget it exists. I would remember it when people came over, then I’d tell them about its cool features. Then I’d forget about it again.

The second possibility is a bit frightening, and is best demonstrated through allegory. My friend Will’s dad, Bill, was once given a George Forman grill as a gift. The idea was that Bill could eat healthier, because the grill drains off the fats from the meat. The problem with the idea was that Bill didn’t eat much meat normally. He actually ate pretty well already. But along comes the grill, and in an attempt to use the gift, because it was fun and new, he began to cook steaks and pork chops for himself regularly. It didn’t matter that the fat was being drained off, because he wouldn’t have even made the fatty things in the first place! What started out as an attempt by a friend to help him out actually just fostered unhealthy habits. Thats what could happen to me and a Tivo. In an attempt to utilize its features, I’d probably end up watching lots of stupid TV that I don’t really like anyway, just so I’d be “getting my money’s worth” from the Tivo.

So, no PVR for me. And you know what? I already don’t miss it.

A poem, by Rob and inspired by Josh.

Flexistentialism Homepage function gothere where { options[where.she
graduates with car batteries and be a
little over 130 years, That all
around the tiny back on
it, to self actualize!
May get the beer, talk to
fill the highlight
of other bicyclists, and by
the sound, as it to
make the bicycle, you give
attribution and the beer. was OK because
Saturday night I
looked quite a vga
cable with their brewery itself is leaving the top
3.860 years. Join SETI@Home
but not a
vagrant on the evening.

Simply beautiful.

Work was good today, I’m finally getting assigned to real tasks, rather than just training and shadowing. After work I went by Worm’s Way, the local gardening slash home brew shop. They were having their annual brew fest, and people had set up propane burners, 40 gallon drums, big tubs, and were brewing all manner of beer. I sampled a few things (not much, because I was driving my scooter), and everything was coming along very nicely.

I’m hoping to do the next stage of my current brew project, make the wort and pitch the yeast starter. However, the yeast starter isn’t being very vigorous. I’m getting occasional bubbling, but not much action, and no head has formed yet. I may wait until tomorrow to make the wort. I may not have gotten very ‘happy’ yeasties, I’m afraid. Hopefully all turns out well.

I decided that today was the day to upgrade my indoor garden. The previous setup was on the floor, with a sawhorse over the plants, and a 400 watt metal halide lamp dangling from underneath the sawhorse over the plants. The problems with that situation mostly stem from the fact that it was too close to the ground.

It was hard to keep clean and it was difficult to keep moisture from damaging the hardwood floor. It also allowed for no storage space, so the usable plant space was limited by the bottles of fertilizer, packets of seeds, extra pots, etc. Finally, it wasn’t as appealing to the eye. The plants were down low, when they should be high up and visible.

To remedy the situation, I took an old table we were no longer using, attached a piece of plywood to the top to make it a little longer, a little wider, and to provide a durable surface that I could drill into. Then I extended the legs of the sawhorse to get the light a little higher. I put the sawhorse up onto the table, screwed it down to the plywood, and rehung the light. Now I had the entire surface of the table for plants, and the underside of the table for storage. If I ever decide to set it up a notch, I’ll be able to move the storage to the side (maybe build some little shelves down there?) and then hang some small lights underneath the table for seed starting.

To celebrate the new setup and increased space, I planted sugar snap peas, green peppers, columbine flowers, basil, chives and dill. Hopefully in time we will have fresh veggies around once again. Food is much more satisfying when it includes things you grew yourself. Even if you just keep a few pots of herbs on a windowsill, its a nice feeling to be able to add a few leaves of fresh basil or chives to your meal.