I was sitting in a very crowded mall at lunch a few days back and a pair of little old ladies invited themselves to my table. It happens frequently as I guess I just happen to look safe.
I went on with my mouth full of Ham and Cheese and let them have as much privacy as you can in a large mall food court while they went on with their lunches that they bought there. I tend to carry a lunch and happened to have one in that mall at that day.
There we sat, me acting like I was starved, two strangers at the table, and not much conversation going on. It was a very loud place so I wasn't trying to pay attention. As I remember I was quite rushed until the attack of the Honeybells.
I had gotten about midway through a large container of Honeybell Orange slices that I had packed when I felt eyes on me. You see, I'm not the only person who likes Oranges, and since I live in the Sunshine State, I can get varieties that you just can't in the North unless you have someone who can hook you up. I looked up and heard "those look so good, you don't know how close you came to losing them" with a twinkle in her eye and a southern drawl on her voice. I smiled and said they're Honeybells, so you probably never had one before unless you know of them.
See Honeybells are an odd cross of Tangelo and some other fruits grown on a Grapefruit root cutting from time to time. They are very sweet, orange with a hint of honey to them. They also get quite big, and have a distinctive handle on the top that comes from the Tangelo Side Of The Family. They're a softer fruit than what you're probably used to and normally darker than your average Navel.
My sister in New Jersey knows of them because one of my last purchases when I was a snowbird every year was to buy her 1/4 bushel of "B" fruit from a stand on the road and head on my way. Well worth the effort.
I still have about 1/4 bushel of Honeybells in my refrigerator from Season, and it was a late one too. The B fruit are "Not Quite Perfect, but eat real well" so when I see them I get them in large quantities for the price. I got these at Spykes Groves in Davie which is always a treat to go to. Spykes sells some really beautiful trees and the "A" or "Gift Quality" Fruit as well. If they're carrying the Gift Boxes of Honeybells, treat yourself if you can and have a box shipped to you, you'll be hooked like I am.
But don't get me started on Mangos!
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Buddy can you spare a CD Writing Program? Free Nero Lite
I have used Nero products before. I usually got them by buying a PC or a CD Burner and the disc would be there to help me get things going. The products are almost always of the highest quality and flexibility. Even though you may or may not need all the options that the program offer, they were there and I never personally came across any bugs that would stop me from using them.
Over the weekend I had a situation that forced me to reload a laptop from scratch. It's my multimedia authoring laptop and as such, I need it to have a CD writer. While XP has some basic DVD and CD writing capacities, they're just not easy to use and I end up wasting a lot of time trying to figure it all out. That says a lot since my title at work is "IT Manager". I can't just lean across to my Network Admin and say "Hey do you remember how to ..."!
I had downloaded this program, legally, from the web site a while back and was using on the laptop before I had to reload it. I also had kept the installer, so I copied it over to a 16GB stick to reinstall it but the installer got corrupted on the hard drive.
No Problem, I searched for the name of the program and the first link I found was this one where I could do the download again. Just surf the page, enter an email address, and they will enable the link. It is a 32MB download so if you're on a dial up just hang your head in shame and do the download and hope that "Mom" doesn't pick up the extension phone.
Since Nero is a company in Europe, your email won't be spammed with all sorts of garbage. They have laws against that sort of nonsense there, something that the US could learn to do.
For now, I have a free product that works well enough for me, and I won't have to go through the effort of finding a free or open source program to do the job. Thanks!
Over the weekend I had a situation that forced me to reload a laptop from scratch. It's my multimedia authoring laptop and as such, I need it to have a CD writer. While XP has some basic DVD and CD writing capacities, they're just not easy to use and I end up wasting a lot of time trying to figure it all out. That says a lot since my title at work is "IT Manager". I can't just lean across to my Network Admin and say "Hey do you remember how to ..."!
I had downloaded this program, legally, from the web site a while back and was using on the laptop before I had to reload it. I also had kept the installer, so I copied it over to a 16GB stick to reinstall it but the installer got corrupted on the hard drive.
No Problem, I searched for the name of the program and the first link I found was this one where I could do the download again. Just surf the page, enter an email address, and they will enable the link. It is a 32MB download so if you're on a dial up just hang your head in shame and do the download and hope that "Mom" doesn't pick up the extension phone.
Since Nero is a company in Europe, your email won't be spammed with all sorts of garbage. They have laws against that sort of nonsense there, something that the US could learn to do.
For now, I have a free product that works well enough for me, and I won't have to go through the effort of finding a free or open source program to do the job. Thanks!
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
A short two mile wake up call
Sometimes you just wake up and say why not?
As anyone who knows me can say, I'm a skater. Rollerblades, Inlines, that sort of thing. There's some other slang names for it, but I'll leave that to others to come up with. I skated competitively through the peak of the sport and well after when I felt like I was the last one out there doing it. I've done a total of 20,800 miles on inline skates, and while that sounds like an exact number, it probably is fairly close. I describe myself as an Elite Fitness Class Skater.
All that bragging aside, I had stopped skating completely about a year ago. There are really no excellent trails here in South Florida to skate without being up at 4AM or having to fight traffic like there are in Philadelphia. I grew used to and spoiled by the challenge of the Schuylkill River Trail, and rose to that challenge by skating 100 miles a week over three workouts in Peak Season, April through October.
One of the things I was looking forward to was finding a long trail and just getting out and getting lost in it. But I never found anything better than the Pompano Airpark trail. At Five Miles Long, its a short trail for me. That is about 30 minutes on a bad day, and while an hour three times a week is what the doctors recommend, its not enough and got boring.
After hanging up my skates and debating about what I'd do, time passed. I think I skated under 10 miles in 2009, I gave up counting. Dust grew around the wheels but I refused to toss them out. I even tried the old school quads in a skating rink in Hollywood just North of the Airport, but I'm way too strong a skater for the whole indoor scene.
Over the last week my knee acted up, and got to the point where I was in severe pain just sitting down. I had gone through therapy before so I know what to do and recognized the signs. What it means is that ironically I hadn't been getting enough exercise. While bragging about skating, I had started to hear from friends saying that I should get back on them, and when I turned my back I'd hear it phrased perhaps a bit less kindly.
Today, Sunday (Yes I write these postings ahead of time) I woke up at 530am angry with the throbbing in my knee and decided I needed to do something different than hobble around a mile walk with Mrs Dog. She was all bouncy as usual so I just threw on jeans, turtleneck and leather jacket and grabbed old faithful, My Skates.
The result was a very happy dog and a very surprised me. I thought I wouldn't be able to do it since just getting out of a chair hurt the knee above the knee cap, but everything just worked. I guess 20,800 miles are tough to forget. It wasn't a very vigorous workout, I stayed at the speed of my Border Collie's Trot. The town is not built for skating, sidewalks are uneven, there are bumpy bits at the intersections for wheelchairs to get a grip while climbing, and there was the ever present possibility of small gravel getting caught behind the wheels and sending me into a "Face Plant", but none of that mattered. Mrs Dog was smiling, I was smiling, and it just felt right.
I am now just finishing the first mug of coffee, and there's no ill results. I guess things are getting back to normal again. I'm ready for the trails.
As anyone who knows me can say, I'm a skater. Rollerblades, Inlines, that sort of thing. There's some other slang names for it, but I'll leave that to others to come up with. I skated competitively through the peak of the sport and well after when I felt like I was the last one out there doing it. I've done a total of 20,800 miles on inline skates, and while that sounds like an exact number, it probably is fairly close. I describe myself as an Elite Fitness Class Skater.
All that bragging aside, I had stopped skating completely about a year ago. There are really no excellent trails here in South Florida to skate without being up at 4AM or having to fight traffic like there are in Philadelphia. I grew used to and spoiled by the challenge of the Schuylkill River Trail, and rose to that challenge by skating 100 miles a week over three workouts in Peak Season, April through October.
One of the things I was looking forward to was finding a long trail and just getting out and getting lost in it. But I never found anything better than the Pompano Airpark trail. At Five Miles Long, its a short trail for me. That is about 30 minutes on a bad day, and while an hour three times a week is what the doctors recommend, its not enough and got boring.
After hanging up my skates and debating about what I'd do, time passed. I think I skated under 10 miles in 2009, I gave up counting. Dust grew around the wheels but I refused to toss them out. I even tried the old school quads in a skating rink in Hollywood just North of the Airport, but I'm way too strong a skater for the whole indoor scene.
Over the last week my knee acted up, and got to the point where I was in severe pain just sitting down. I had gone through therapy before so I know what to do and recognized the signs. What it means is that ironically I hadn't been getting enough exercise. While bragging about skating, I had started to hear from friends saying that I should get back on them, and when I turned my back I'd hear it phrased perhaps a bit less kindly.
Today, Sunday (Yes I write these postings ahead of time) I woke up at 530am angry with the throbbing in my knee and decided I needed to do something different than hobble around a mile walk with Mrs Dog. She was all bouncy as usual so I just threw on jeans, turtleneck and leather jacket and grabbed old faithful, My Skates.
The result was a very happy dog and a very surprised me. I thought I wouldn't be able to do it since just getting out of a chair hurt the knee above the knee cap, but everything just worked. I guess 20,800 miles are tough to forget. It wasn't a very vigorous workout, I stayed at the speed of my Border Collie's Trot. The town is not built for skating, sidewalks are uneven, there are bumpy bits at the intersections for wheelchairs to get a grip while climbing, and there was the ever present possibility of small gravel getting caught behind the wheels and sending me into a "Face Plant", but none of that mattered. Mrs Dog was smiling, I was smiling, and it just felt right.
I am now just finishing the first mug of coffee, and there's no ill results. I guess things are getting back to normal again. I'm ready for the trails.
Monday, March 8, 2010
A Dog Sleeps Tonight - Picture
I've had Mrs Dog, Lettie, for about 8 years now. I got her from Angel Pets Rescue in Harrisburg area, and am very happy I have. She's an amazing dog. A very strong personality, when I met her I realized that she had to come home with me and be a part of my life.
I wasn't quite ready for what that meant. She's a fearful dog. Many things make her jump out of her skin. Other dogs and she are not friends but she does like people. I've learned how to deal with that and not push her into situations with a dog that is larger than she is. I suspect she's a natural Beta Dog which is fine because I have my moments where I'm an Alpha Male and she's happiest when I'm giving instructions.
She speaks English well enough that I can tell her what to do and she'll do it. "Lets go to Publix" means we're going for a walk down a specific route, a half mile away from home, sit in front of the supermarket and wait for a bit, then walk down a specific route back to the house. If I say "Short Walk" we'll go a different route past Old City Hall and home through the parking lot of the Shoppes. I can cook, as all my friends and readers know, and if I say "Not for dogs" she will curl up into a DogBall (TM) like you see above and ignore what I'm up to. If I drop food for her, I've gotten her so well trained that she will watch that food until I say OK for up to and over thirty minutes.
I've certainly had my life enriched by having Lettie and saving her from the shelter. I'm thankful that Paulette the Animal Control Officer in PA decided that this particular dog needed to be saved from the regular kill shelters and that Megs at Angel Pets hung onto my fearful little girl for that year or so before I found her online.
And now she's going to get a cookie. COOKIE!!!!!!
Sunday, March 7, 2010
How I roasted my Coffee Beans
If you're all that interested, there are some other articles to read on this.
I had had some trouble finding green coffee beans, and while I've found some other resources, here's the first time experience .
Once I got my beans, I had to get the gear to do the roasting and here was what I did. Your mileage may vary.
This on the other hand, is the Bits and Bytes of the process. I actually got my second roast done. There is a surprising amount of flex in what you can do to get the roasting done. In other words, what I did may not be quite to your standards. I just finished the first mug out of this and it was truly a wonderful mug of coffee. More on that in a later posting, there will be a summary or an epilogue.
What I did was to get out my Poppery II popper, my green beans and I attempted to make this as scientific a process as I could. I used by weight 2.80 ounces or 80 grams of green coffee beans. That worked out to be about 1/3 of a cup of beans plus or minus a wee bit more by volume. I was shooting for the amount to make one pot of coffee. Since I use a French Press to make the coffee, I needed more than 8 scoops of espresso grind in order to do it quite right. The French Press I have is a large one, made of Stainless Steel, and while it looks impressive, it allows me to brew the coffee the same way every time.
However I am getting ahead of my self. This is the story of the process.
After I measured out the beans, I poured them into the popper and plugged it in. There is no switch on this machine, and I'll have to get a switch to control the heating elements so that I can cool the beans afterwords. The machine immediately came on and growled to life.
After heating and spinning my beans for about four and a half minutes, my beans reached the First Crack Stage. The chaff has been blown off and they make a soft crackling sound like Rice Crispies, although not so loud and not so many crackles at once. That stage lasts about a minute from the first bean cracking to the last one cracking. That was from four to about 5 minutes into the process.
Once the beans stopped cracking, it was a judgement call. I did not feel that the beans got quite dark enough until I reached six and a half minutes when I turned off the roaster. At 6:30, I poured the beans into a large stainless steel bowl and allowed them to cool while I took the dog for her walk around town.
And here are the results. The beans did turn out perfectly. Or at least they turned out perfectly for me. The timing is really up to you. I would say that if you are going to try this, keep in mind that you will be your best judge. We all know what "Coffee Colored" is but we all perceive a Great Cup Of Coffee differently.
The first time I did this, I let the roast go until about 8 minutes. I hit the Second Crack stage as the smoke alarm fired off, I ran to reset that, came back and my beans were smoking. I was too stubborn to not try them, so I immediately poured the hot beans into the grinder and melted the grinder enough that it is now in the bin waiting for a final trip to Mount Trashmore. That batch of coffee ended up tasting like Starbucks. Drinkable but definitely could be better since Starbucks' nickname is "Burnt Beans".
This time, no smoke, no alarms, just the results you see here.
More on the preparation later. I don't want to go on TOO long in one article.
I had had some trouble finding green coffee beans, and while I've found some other resources, here's the first time experience .
Once I got my beans, I had to get the gear to do the roasting and here was what I did. Your mileage may vary.
This on the other hand, is the Bits and Bytes of the process. I actually got my second roast done. There is a surprising amount of flex in what you can do to get the roasting done. In other words, what I did may not be quite to your standards. I just finished the first mug out of this and it was truly a wonderful mug of coffee. More on that in a later posting, there will be a summary or an epilogue.
What I did was to get out my Poppery II popper, my green beans and I attempted to make this as scientific a process as I could. I used by weight 2.80 ounces or 80 grams of green coffee beans. That worked out to be about 1/3 of a cup of beans plus or minus a wee bit more by volume. I was shooting for the amount to make one pot of coffee. Since I use a French Press to make the coffee, I needed more than 8 scoops of espresso grind in order to do it quite right. The French Press I have is a large one, made of Stainless Steel, and while it looks impressive, it allows me to brew the coffee the same way every time.
However I am getting ahead of my self. This is the story of the process.
After I measured out the beans, I poured them into the popper and plugged it in. There is no switch on this machine, and I'll have to get a switch to control the heating elements so that I can cool the beans afterwords. The machine immediately came on and growled to life.
After heating and spinning my beans for about four and a half minutes, my beans reached the First Crack Stage. The chaff has been blown off and they make a soft crackling sound like Rice Crispies, although not so loud and not so many crackles at once. That stage lasts about a minute from the first bean cracking to the last one cracking. That was from four to about 5 minutes into the process.
Once the beans stopped cracking, it was a judgement call. I did not feel that the beans got quite dark enough until I reached six and a half minutes when I turned off the roaster. At 6:30, I poured the beans into a large stainless steel bowl and allowed them to cool while I took the dog for her walk around town.
The first time I did this, I let the roast go until about 8 minutes. I hit the Second Crack stage as the smoke alarm fired off, I ran to reset that, came back and my beans were smoking. I was too stubborn to not try them, so I immediately poured the hot beans into the grinder and melted the grinder enough that it is now in the bin waiting for a final trip to Mount Trashmore. That batch of coffee ended up tasting like Starbucks. Drinkable but definitely could be better since Starbucks' nickname is "Burnt Beans".
This time, no smoke, no alarms, just the results you see here.
More on the preparation later. I don't want to go on TOO long in one article.
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