Meringue for the Key Lime Pie Recipe

This could be a recipe on how you get started playing around in the kitchen and how things turn out OK, but not quite right...

I had always made my Key Lime Pies with Meringue.  That was how they were when I was a kid, that was the recipe I had taken back home in the 80s when I started coming back, and that is just how it is.  Whipped cream just isn't enough for me.

First the basic recipe - this was the one that I started out with:

Meringue (optional)

• 3 to 4 egg whites
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon cornstarch
• dash salt

In a glass or stainless steel bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Combine sugar, cornstarch, and salt; gradually beat into the egg whites. Continue beating until egg whites no longer feel gritty (with sugar)when a little is smeared between two fingers. Spoon onto the hot pie filling, spreading to cover completely to the crust. Put back in the oven and bake at 350° until meringue is browned, about 12 to 15 minutes.

Now here is where I got things a little bit wrong...

First off, that blurb above is for a recipe that is made in two steps.  Bake the pie, pull it out, then dress with meringue and finish it off.   My old recipe was done in one step - decorate the filled pie and bake.  This two step process thickens the pie by cooking the filling and then you put the meringue on and bake that.  This was the Lumpy Pie and how I prepared it by folding in some Meringue first and allowing it to stick to the Meringue you add on top.

Meringue will start to brown after about 15 minutes but that will vary depending on how thick you raise your whites.  That is controlled by how firmly whipped the eggs whites are and what you add to the egg and sugar mixture.

This recipe also does not mention having room temperature egg whites - I have always made meringue with room temp egg whites.  That was what they told me to do... let them sit out for 30 minutes, separate egg white from yolk. 

I think that making Meringue is one of those things.  You make it the way you were taught and everyone else is WRONG.  In other words, if it works, great - you need to get a recipe, then work at it until it is perfect.

My variations here were ... amusing.

First of all, I always used Cream of Tartar when making Meringue.  I don't know why, my first recipe had 1/4 teaspoon added to it to give it body I guess.  So I added that to the mixer while it was turned on. 

Add to that, the Cornstarch.   Cornstarch is a thickener.  You don't really taste the stuff but it adds body.  I keep it in the house because every so often I want to make a stir fry meal with a sauce.  Cook in the wok, pull your food out, then toss Cornstarch in to make it thicker, maybe with a little water. 

Add all that together, put it into the mixer and turn it on until it looks done.  Beautiful stuff, but it was VERY thick.  I could have stopped earlier, and had a lighter Meringue, but I am stubborn.  I'd rather have something that I KNOW will work than have to guess.

Cornstarch plus Cream of Tartar plus the eggs and sugar in a Stand Mixer with a whisk.  I've made Meringue by hand in a bowl - and all of the tools must be scrupulously sterile and free of any grease or this won't rise.  Mine was as you can see.

Just how risen it was is shown in this picture.  You can actually see little building blocks of fluff piled on top of each other with holes and craters.  It looked to me like someone blew up the Meringue with some firecrackers, then scooped it back on top.

I did say I got it wrong didn't I?

This stuff is thick.   I should have stopped earlier and not ended up with a pie from Cakewrecks.com

But hey, I'm not done yet!  The thing still has to be smoothed out and baked. 

The End Result.

It actually ended up tasting great.  The pie was a little loose, and that's easy enough to fix - bake it longer.  I smoothed out the Meringue, tried for a few peaks and decided it was just too thick.  The oven was at 350, and I pulled it out after 20 minutes.  The layer of fluff was about the same as the depth of the pie shell - so next time more egg whites.  My old recipe was 4 yolks to 6 whites.  The recipe above was 3 or 4 whites - not quite enough Meringue for this pie.

Anxious cooks everywhere will realize what went through my head. 

I guess the recipe way above is right - cook the pie for about 15 minutes at 325, pull the pie from the oven, turn the temp up to 350.  Then apply the Meringue, artfully to the top, and place the pie back into the oven and bake until it is done - another 15 minutes.

The next time I make the Key Lime Pie, I will follow the recipe... I promise.  The pie above tasted wonderful, I made enough to go across the street and when talking to the neighbor last night, he was still raving about it a week later.  

Taste is one thing, perfection is another.  When or if I achieve that level of perfection, I'll let you know... I still have 5 more Pie Crusts to go through!  When the mistake turns out better than what you get when you are at the store... I'm willing to make the mistakes.

Key Lime Pie Recipe and Picture

Yes, this really is a lumpy pie.

Why?  Well because I took the picture mid preparation and started on the meringue, but I am getting way ahead of myself and I'm saving Meringue and cooking for a later post...

What you're looking at is my lumpy Key Lime Pie.  Trust me, it tasted wonderful and this is what it looks like before you put the meringue on top and pop it into the oven.

Key Limes are a special variety of the fruit.  They don't grow everywhere, they are different since they have thinner skin and a different taste.  More seeds in the fruit mean you're going to have less juice as well.  You can swap out the regular old "Persian" limes for them in a recipe, but you just won't have the same taste.  It won't be "right".  Since it is a smaller and very seasonal crop, you may not be able to find the juice at all outside of the US or even in smaller areas inside of the US unless you resort to online shopping but the taste is truly worth it.

The original recipe relied on the acid in the Key Lime to react with the egg yolks and the sweetened condensed milk to form a custard via that chemical reaction.   You would put it all together and somehow it would thicken.  I've never found a recipe like that and the idea of raw eggs is not appetizing to me.

The pie would be served with whipped cream or Meringue on top.  I always opt for the Meringue since you will have the egg whites left over and it's only a few more steps to make the whites into that wonderful fluff.

Especially if you have a stand mixer like I do.

The recipe I used was simple.

For the Crust: 1 Ready Made Graham Cracker Crust.  

Yes, I cheated.  I went to GFS intending to get one crust, they came in a package of six.  I'll be making a lot of "Weekly Pies" to share. If I decide to make a crust from scratch, I'll post how I did it later but for expedience sake... They work well.

For the filling:

5 Room Temperature Egg Yolks, Beaten.  Yes, Room Temp since the Meringue needs them that way.  30 minutes out on the counter will do it.

1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk.

1/2 cup key lime juice - I use Nellie and Joe's Key Lime Juice.  I always have even when I was a snowbird.  Since moving here, I have met the CFO of the company locally and she gave me a couple bottles knowing I bake.  Hi Jayne!

That is it for the ingredients.

Pretty simple - if you are going to stop here and serve with some whipped cream or just slices of lime for garnish, pour the lime juice into the bowl with the egg yolks and the sweetened condensed milk.

Mix all ingredients until smooth and blended.  

Pour into the mix into the pie crust and bake at 350 for 15 to 30 minutes or until set.  I would check before 30 minutes for done-ness since your oven time will vary and not having the meringue on top will mean for a shorter bake time.  The pie will "set up" after it comes out of the oven and into the refrigerator.  Serve cold.  

I have seen recipes that say to pull this pie out of the oven at 15 and let cool.  Your timing WILL vary.


I promise I'll give you the recipe for the Meringue... later.  It deserves its own post since it was comical the way I made the stuff.   For now, if you want a simple pie that's all it takes.  The hardest part is finding the Key Lime Juice. 

Variations would include using another citrus juice for the pie such as Lemon or Grapefruit.  Tart works well with this recipe.

So what is this bar thing at the bottom?

Simple. 

It allows you to chat, if someone else is there you can even talk to someone else.

The bar at the bottom will talk with Facebook and show you the group that I set up.

There will be a map that shows you where the last few people are who hit the page.

There is a link on the bottom that shows you how many people liked the page.

That's the short and sweet.  I have been wondering who if anyone has been reading my blog.  I sit down after I make my coffee in the morning, before I do the job search, and I check things out.  Each page that I write, the blog entries are basically a "Brain Dump".  I sit there and think of a topic, or post a picture and write about it.  I have wondered whether or not there was a reason for me to continue, and knowing that there's someone who I don't know in Washington who has been reading me daily for a while, does make it worth it. 

I know when I posted something about GFS, it wandered all through their corporate HQ and I got a real spike in traffic.  Great shop by the way, if you have a GFS nearby, go and explore.  Their food is high quality and if the other stores are anything like the one in Fort Lauderdale, they'll be just as amazing as well.  Real nice folks down here, I'm sorry I didn't go in earlier.  Very helpful and very friendly.

There are some posts that get hit more than others of course.  The ones I wrote about the Poang chair last summer constantly get hit more than every other day.  The one where I basically trash a Swiffer gets hit a little less but there is a lot of interest in those as well.

I'm not a corporation, I haven't earned a penny from the Blog, but knowing that people are interested keeps me going.  Being able to track what everyone likes to read is good for me because I can write more about that sort of thing.  This is all opinion, and if I'm wrong... well I'm wrong and it won't be the first time.

I will hop in the chat bar every so often.  If you see someone in there say hi.  I'll be surprised but happily so.

If you are on Facebook, feel free to join the group.   I'll post the day's link in there as well as in my own FB page.  It isn't a very popular blog, I've got around 100 readers, which is surprising as well.   I hated to write in school and writing here was a pleasant change of pace for me. 

Being a Project Manager, I've found that this is a good outlet for me to write instructions to folks who have technical questions.  If I get long winded, well that's all part of the job I guess. 

For now, the immediate payback is that if I get this to work, I'll add this sort of thing to a client's web page and be able to help that group touch other people's lives with their own message. 

So feel free, read, and enjoy.  By all means, let me know what you think!  I've got almost a full year (next week will be the anniversary) of postings and they're all online in the archives.  My personal schedule is to put up one new posting a day, at 8 in the morning, my time in Florida. 

The End of Summer - Picture

Labor Day is the traditional end of summer.

I was in Provincetown, MA one year and heard a local talk about how when Labor Day hits, it is like a light switch.  At least in that little part of the world, the weather gets markedly cooler and you really know that summer has ended.  He was right, it was noticeably colder by the end of that week.

This morning, the day after Labor Day, I was out walking the dog and it felt cool.   Cool is a relative term, I'm fully acclimated to Florida Temperatures so 70 is cold and I'm in a leather jacket.  The little pop up on my browser just told me it is 81 outside at 7:40 in the morning.  The forecast shows no temperatures in the 90s for the week.

We aren't technically speaking "Tropical".  That starts at the Tropic of Cancer, 20 miles North of Havana, Cuba.

Roughly.

On the other hand, it has never frozen in Fort Lauderdale this close to the beach that I can tell.  The records bear that out.  It did make it down to 34F/1C last winter and the town above us, Oakland Park, had snow flurries last year.  Once.  For about 5 minutes.

You snowbirds will start looking at the calendar and planning your February getaways soon.  Things have the feeling of "Season is Approaching".  The bars and clubs are busier, there's more traffic.  I saw my first Canadian license plate the other day.  They can't drive down here worth a whit, but at least they're polite about it.  Some of the other snowbirds, not so much.

For now, the rains are here, still.  It rained most of the evening hours here and into the night.  That implies that it is cooling, since lately it has been too hot to rain during the day.  The rains stayed off the beach and to the west, over the turnpike.  This morning as the sun came up, it had to come up further in order to be seen because there were so many clouds left over.  Giant spires of cotton candy, back lit with shades of gold and silver, lit inside with the crackle of millions of volts of lightning. 

No rain yet this morning, but the day is still young.

That lightning is why you tend not to see Floridians with umbrellas.  If we carry them it is rain, not thunder.  For the most part a storm down here is a half hour.  When it rains all day, it is a rare thing, but it did rain "all night".  My pool is full and that is a very good thing. 

The rains flushed out the toads and the walk was full of the sounds of frogs and birds singing.  An early morning parrot stood on the wire near the house and insisted on chattering at me, which is a better conversation than I had in a while.  After all, drunk snowbirds are entertaining in a different way.  Wildlife is to be cherished in all its beauty.

Sunrise over Wilton Manors

Beauty can be found anywhere.

At the same time, Beauty can be ephemeral.  You can find it anywhere, but not anywhen.

In this case it was from the mailbox in front of my house.  Obviously you're not going to get quite this view every day, and you won't get it in the middle of the afternoon. 

The sunrise yesterday was particularly colorful.  There were just the right amount of clouds, the sun was at the right angle, and I was able to use my dusty old mailbox as a tripod to grab this shot.  When I looked at it this morning, I cropped out the houses that were at the bottom of the frame and called it done.

I guess it is the benefit of getting up at the crack of insane o'clock.  Few people are out and those who are out and about are not looking to get in your way.  They are normally dog walkers like myself or they're coming home from a night of revelling.  The folks who are heading to work at that hour are in their cars rushing about so you won't see them outside of a close brush with death as they fly by 15 MPH over the speed limit talking on their cell phones or worse, texting somebody about something that is immaterial. 

There are times that are better to take pictures.  Typically it is within an hour or two of sunrise or sunset.  The colors are muted, you get more golds in your pictures.  The name for that time is the Golden Hour, so I have been told.  If you are going to take pictures of scenery, it is an alternative since there are some scenes, like at the beach that are not going to shine.  Beach scenes tend to be monochrome - the blue of the sky and the water, the sliver of silver that is the sand.  Crowds are the interest there, unless you're shooting the sunrise or sunset.  At sunrise, the beaches shimmer with copper, gold, and other colors that are missing when the snowbirds are out and about.

I have plenty of beach shots, and would like to get some more.  In order to do that, you have to deal with the crowds and crush of people, leave the car and rub shoulders with the salty masses. 

On the other hand, even in a place of starkness, there is beauty.  People take pictures of the desert dunes that are amazing and otherworldly to me as are that of the Arctic winter scenes where everything looks like a painting made with one color.  Here it is a riot of color, a sensory overload of flowers, a shock of wildlife that you generally won't see elsewhere, even in the temperate Northern woods.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Plantains are on my Plate Today

Labor day in the US.  A Summer Bank Holiday where everyone goes out and has cookouts and eats way too much.  Outside of the United States, people are probably saying what's different from every day?

Snide comments aside, it is a fun holiday.  If you enjoy cooking, this is a chance for you to get your favorite recipe and try it out.  There's always extra so the neighborhood ends up being a giant rolling feast or a pot luck dinner party if there isn't anything official.

Later today, I'm planning on having burgers, fries, boiled yuca and probably something else for lunch.  This afternoon I'm thinking about baking a Key Lime Pie. 

This is Florida after all, and I've been making them since the early 1980s.  I went to GFS yesterday, visited with Vanessa there and the rest of the friendly folks in Ft Lauderdale, and got five ready made graham cracker pie crusts and that means that I'll be making a lot of pies over the next month.  I will do a post once I get the recipe all figured out.  My sister made it for a friend up in Cherry Hill, NJ, and it turned out wonderful.

Since I've been down here, I've been exposed to new foods.  Most of the new foods I have enjoyed.  The problem is that while I am not a professional cook, I am detail oriented enough to want to try the recipe myself.  If you turn a Project Manager loose in a kitchen you get some interesting results.

If I like it, and you can make it, why can't I make it too?

I have always enjoyed going to a specific fast food restaurant here and having boiled yuca, rice and beans, and a half chicken.  It comes with Candied or Sweet Plantains.

Plantains are the big ugly brother of the banana family.  Kind of like me.  They can be cooked, I've had them raw and they aren't as sweet as the usual "Cavendish" variety.  They're usually about twice the size of a large banana, and are sold Green, Yellow, and Black.  Each color has a different use.  You can make them into savory dishes, have them mashed for breakfast which is something I'll try in the future, or sweet.  Basically each of those choices for each of those colors respectively.  Your Mileage May Vary.

My favorite is the sweet plantains.  You get golden chunks of fruit cooked, served typically warm with a sweet coating.  I never knew what was on them or how to even attempt to cook them until I finally decided enough was enough and pursued it myself.

If you want to try this, read this narrative at least once - there's a lot of judgment in how I made these things.  Basically I was done when they just looked "Right"!  Also remember, I've done this a couple times and got it right each time - its a very forgiving fruit and unless you burn it, it is hard to get it wrong.  Since I am writing from memory - you will want to use your own judgment.  Yes, there's that word again - if you burn your kitchen down well, it makes for a great story and it is at your own risk just like anything in life, come on back and write in my comments about it!  :)

So here we go, this is what I found.

The setup is that I used a non stick pan which is not really traditional.  I don't like cleaning goo off of my good iron skillet so to the teflon I went.  This recipe is easier in a non stick pan.

To the skillet I added about a teaspoon and a half of butter and put the thing on medium heat. 

While the skillet was melting the butter, I sliced the Plantain.  Everywhere I have seen it done in thick chunks, about 4 to 8 per Plantain.  I wanted more so I sliced them thinner.

Remember Thin Slices Cook Faster!  This recipe takes about 5 minutes more or less to cook.  It's quick!

Now that the butter was melted, I added the chunks of plantains to the skillet.  On top of the chunks I scattered about a teaspoon of sugar, and eventually added more.   The idea is to get some on everything, and mix some up with the butter.  Flip the chunks around so the sugar gets on the bottom of the pan and mixes in well.   Stir the chunks around and now you basically have a sauce forming of butter and sugar.  

What you have is a skillet bubbling with plantains cooking and a toffee sauce, butter and sugar, in the base.

When the plantains begin to turn a golden brown on the bottom side, flip them and repeat.  When you flip them, dust the entire skillet with Cinnamon Powder if you like it.  Stir the plantains around to get the cinnamon mixed in the toffee in the bottom of the pan.   Flip them if you like - the goal is to get everything coated with cinnamon, sugar, butter and cooked well.

The plantains are ready when they're cooked to an amber color, tender, and coated with that sugary goo.

Remove the plantains, serve warm with the syrup from the bottom of the pan if there is any left. 

My plantains were actually a little bit crispy because the syrup turned into a brittle candy on the outside.  I liked the effect and will try for that again but it will require more butter and sugar than I used.

Ingredients:
Skillet - I used a 9 inch non stick skillet.

1 or 2 plantains at the yellow to black stage.  Each one serves two people.  Sliced to 4 to 8 or more slices per fruit.

Butter - minimum of 1 teaspoon per fruit.  You need to cover the pan lightly and the butter will be the sauce they're served in.

Sugar - minimum of about 1 1/2 Teaspoons per Plantain.  It is traditional to use brown sugar but I used ordinary white sugar the last time and it was good too.

Ground Cinnamon - Dust to Taste.

If you try this, please let me know in the comments.  I love the stuff, I must be a crazy anglo but I really do enjoy these sweet things.

Earth, Wind and Fire and Bottles

Earth Wind and Fire is and was one of my favorite musical groups of all times.  Growing up when I did, I got exposed to a lot of dance music - sorry, Disco.  With a Big D.  There was also a lot of R and B, Soul and other Black formats of music.  This was the era where it was becoming less of a political statement for a white guy from the suburbs to enjoy the black radio stations.  Good music is universal, just like all good art.

In and near Philadelphia, it never was a big deal while I was growing up.  If you listened to the Disco Station in the 70s, you would naturally tune over to the Black Station when there was a song you didn't like and flip back when you got bored there.  I suspect in the larger markets, especially up North and out on the West coast it was pretty much the same.  Music wasn't quite as political as before then, and shortly there after.

I can't say how it is now, because since Clear Channel single handedly wrecked music on radio during the 90s with the homogenization of radio in the large markets, I stopped listening to music on radio.  Except with my iPod running through a transmitter to my car radio, there is very little use I have for popular music on broadcast radio these days.  NPR and Classical if I'm not listening to something I have handy.

But there's always dance music.  Trance, Techno, Goa... I have links for all of them on my one laptop that I have devoted to the cause of being a table radio.   I can click a button and have international radio and web broadcasters at my command.  I get my news from the BBC, music from Dutch DJs on a London Website.  Maybe one commercial or two every hour, and no mindless DJs like the boneheads that Sirius radio insists on putting on.

Sirius is so bad that I will just save them for a separate rant.  You lost your way guys, and you are almost as terrible as the Clear Channel radio stations that you laugh at.

Every so often when I get tired of the Electronic Dance music, I return to those wonderful days of the "Black Radio Stations" that were actually programmed locally by people who understood the music and wanted to make it fun and worth while to come back.  Earth Wind and Fire is one of those groups that they would play.  Plenty of Albums, active for about 10 years there is enough to listen to to get going and revisit your friends.

I can't picture the teenage kids down the block going on a hunt for Earth Wind and Fire.  I don't know the last time I heard them on the radio... oh scratch that, I haven't listened to a station that might even ironically play EWF in ages.  I will admit that you probably have to be over 35 to be into the group.  If you're over 35 you're not prone to violence unless it hasn't gotten pounded out of you so this news item left me confused and thinking "It must have been an outsider".

Seems that in Fort Collins, Colorado the other day there was a concert where EWF was playing and there was a riot.  Lets see, LA, Riot?  Yeah not hard to picture is it?  But Fort Collins?  That's a small city in a Red State!  College town at that, and they're usually leafy and quiet and sometimes boring but a riot?  At a concert where there were a bunch of 40 and 50 and 60 somethings dreaming about "Back In The Day"?

Where's my copy of Boogie Wonderland on a 12 inch Vinyl?  I want to Dance! with the Emotions while I read about this one!  You can listen to it here...

To Quote CBS News:


Although it is unclear what initially sparked the fight (most likely a combination of alcohol and more alcohol), police say the crowd of about 400 people began throwing bottles, damaging cars, and setting fires in the city of Fort Collins, Colo., about 65 miles north of Denver.

Wow, I guess I'm living a sheltered life.  I've never been in a bar brawl, I've never been in a riot, I've always been lucky that way.  I missed being in the LA Riots by a month and even drove a rental through South Central and came out safe.  There was a Target there and I needed some supplies when I was there for business.


It all strikes me as strange.  Not like going to a hockey game and seeing a fight - you expect that there.  Going to an oldies concert and having a riot break out in a small town?  Bizarre!  You can catch some of that confusion I'm seeing in the article I am quoting above... in the mean time I'm going to go on living my sheltered life and scratching my head.  I prefer my own music without beer bottles so concerts are out.

Freaky!  Hey, stop messing with my oldies and stop harshing my mellow!

If You're Going to do Carbs in Training

Do it right!

One of the people I have as a friend on Facebook was talking about making waffles.  He got up early and apparently decided it was going to be a good day for cooking up a whole pile of these things.

I got to thinking, he's absolutely right.

This was the same day that I caught a deal for a free waffle at Waffle House and was bothered by the fact that the nearest one to me was shut down for a day because of live roaches, dead ones in the light fixtures, dirt and grease all over the place.  Waffle House is rarely what I'd call clean, this one on Powerline Road below Commercial in Fort Lauderdale was decidedly dirty the one time I went in there...

Won't be back...

But Waffle House has great pecan waffles.  I do like Waffle House, a lot.  When I go in, I'm very careful and observant as to whether this one is clean.  The one in Davie is the same way I'm afraid...

I only ever make my own waffles with pecans in them and usually have them with eggs or grits on the side.  So why do it at home?  I'm sure what ever Mike did to make these waffles, he did a much healthier batch than Waffle House did.  They're probably lower in fat, and knowing Mike, if he made them he made them with higher quality ingredients.  He's currently training and doing a great job at building himself up from the pictures.

The point is that if you're going to splurge and break training because of a craving, make sure you are doing it for the right reason.  Don't have a twinkie, go down to the local coffee house and have that piece of Red Velvet that you eyed the week before and were worried about it slowing you down.  Go to the kitchen and make your own waffles, toss in pecan chips and maybe some craisins or blueberries and use the real Vermont Maple Syrup that you have stored in the back of the refrigerator for the special occasion.

Cravings when you are dieting is your sub-conscious watching your needs and telling your conscious that there is something you really should have that you're not getting in the diet.  Pregnant women's cravings are due to the high nutritional needs that they have in producing their little bundle of joy.  If you train hard, your body will need a high amount of protein and carbohydrates to build muscle - but keep the fat intake low because you won't burn that off as fast. 

When I was training, peak season I would eat between 4000 and 6000 calories a day depending on how many miles I'd skate.  I'd burn that up and lose weight too because it takes a lot of energy to move 235 pounds of muscle 15 mph for 33 miles.  When it was off season, my cravings were different because I would strictly weight train, and I went from craving sweets to craving beef and chicken.

If you are doing it right... don't waste the craving on junk food, make it at home and make it higher quality.  Just remember, everything in moderation and you'll be fine.

City Hall Parking Lot Construction Picture

A Month later, it's gone and now we have a parking lot taking shape.

They tore down the old City Hall, recycled what they could and carted away the rest.

Over the last week there has been constant daytime activity on the old City Hall footprint.  The plans are being followed to create a temporary parking lot at the site.

There was a significant amount of grading and leveling that took place over the last few days, and the site was built up to what you see here.  The entire site seems graded and sloped toward the New City Hall and eventually the Middle River just south of the site.  There is drainage, or what appears to be some drainage roughly where the equipment sits mid frame, but I suspect that in the wet season we're going to be depending on the soil being very porous and a lot of percolation taking place.  Hopefully, runoff on the site won't be too destructive.

They aren't quite finished building the lot.  There's a couple more layers of Asphalt to be put down, as you can see with the layers we have as of this picture.  First pack everything down, then more to level it off.   Layer a couple levels of black top down and hope for the best.  I didn't see what they did with the basement level of Old City Hall but I do hope that it was filled solidly and can take the strain.

This lot is expected to last us about 3 years and hopefully will hold on longer than that if we need it.

Always Install New Software in Advanced Mode

Huh?  What is he saying?  What is this another computer rant?

Yes.

I spent some time over the last week helping out an executive client in their home.  This person got "stuck" doing something and went to restore what they did from a backup copy and ended up restoring the entire system. 

A lot of the terminology with computers is very confusing.  It was easy to do, especially if you are a home user or what they call "SOHO" - Small Office Home Office user.  You end up doing your own Tech Support and most of the time you will get it right.  Sometimes you slip and click the wrong button.  I've done it.  Big Oops, you recover and move on.

The deal with all that was that my client ended up with a computer that had a shiny new copy of Windows XP layered over his old data with none of those programs that were needed to do the work that you have a PC in the first place. 

I was called in because the keyboard was not recognized, of all things.  It wasn't a fancy keyboard, it was a step above the $10 specials you see stacked in the back of a computer store.  It had a couple buttons on the top that you could use to control your playback of CD or other multimedia and XP got confused.  I got that fixed in about a minute, so we took the time to reinstall all the things that were needed.

What caught me was something that I always blew past.  When you install software these days, almost everything comes with spyware - Browser Toolbars.   Toolbars are something that if I spot when I sit at someone else's PC, I know that I am sitting at a machine that is being used by someone who is not at an expert level of knowledge.  Not everyone needs that level of knowledge, they can always "Call A Friend" and you can puzzle it out together. 

But NOBODY needs a toolbar to do a search.  What a toolbar does on a browser is report home to the company that made it what you are doing within a browser.  If you do a search, it is there to help... itself to what you just typed in.  It sits there consuming resources and slows down what you are doing.  A client out of town had six of these monstrosities loaded and asked why it was always slow to surf.  They were going to buy a new laptop and were really not happy about it.  15 minutes later crisis was averted.  Nice fast browsing again... then I removed Skype that they didn't use and much faster.

Mind you, I use Skype for internet phone calls and once started a business that was splattered over the Eastern Seaboard of the US with a fascinating friend using Skype for teleconferencing.  With Skype doing the backbone of our business and open source software we created a very professional business presentation.  Then Bush's Great Depression hit and the company folded, but that is another story...

Computers come loaded with a lot of programs that really aren't needed.  They are commonly called "Crapware" and the worst are those browser toolbars.  If you need to search, in Internet Explorer, you can do it in the address bar up top or the little bar to the right of that.  You can configure the default search provider to be who ever you want, but for most "Bing" or "Google" are great.  Just type in a search string and IE will do it for you.

Firefox is the same, just click into that little box up top next to the upper right corner with the little icon for your default searcher and you're good to go.

Type it in and hit enter.  See?  It works.

You just don't need those toolbars.

So as you go to install your next piece of software, select either "Advanced" or "Custom".  For the most part, you will just click through each page saying "Next".  Eventually you'll find that they want to add a friendly toolbar and if you click next there, you will end up with one of the little parasites.   Click that check box first to say you do NOT want it, and then you can click next. 

The idea is that the machine you are installing software on is *your* machine, not owned by the search providers.  It isn't the people's that you went to to download that neat little game or MP3 player or "whatsit".  Installing software in advanced mode gives you the opportunity to take a little bit of control back from the nasties out there. 

There are a lot of programs out there that I run on a daily basis.  All of what I do is on something I downloaded for free and is considered "Free Or Open Source".  They even call that "FOSS".  A lot of that software is completely free of ads and runs under something that says it will be free forever - that's called the GNU license. I consider GNU a mark of a well written program and I'll take a chance on that immediately.  Once in a while you'll run across someone who adds in advertising or a tool bar and I've just ranted on how to get around that, advanced mode install.   If not you may wonder why you have a new stripe in your browser or why things look different.

Take your time.  We're here to help.  Someone is ... if not me, someone is.  That 12 year old kid down the block who is good with games and wears tape on their glasses might be a good one to ask too ... if you can get them out of Mom's Basement!