Well, I broke down and bought a new toy. It is a thermal immersion circulator by Polyscience. What was once in the bailiwick of laboratory scientists, is now showing up in the kitchen of chefs. Food is vacuum sealed in plastic bags and cooked in a temperature controlled bath of water. This type of cooking is called sous vide. And you can read more about it here. So far I have used it to cook meat and salmon.
I am beginning to think that my riding bike is a death-trap. I took a spill this morning. The roads were slightly damp. No problem. Until I came to an area of new construction and the road was covered with mud. Now my tires are covered in mud, but still no problem. And then I approached an intersection. Once I made the right-hand turn over the concrete, I went down. Fortunately, my hip took the worst of it. A good Samaritan asked me if I was alright. It was all that I could do to nod my head yes. It took me a while to walk that one off.
I was going to get back on that horse and continue the ride. But the rear of my bike felt squirrelly. And I wussed out and turned around.
The hand-sized welt turned into a nice bruise.
The meetup group went to Old Settler's Park today. Out of the 8 who RSVP'd yes, only 4 showed up. It looks like someone planted a new tree right in front of the tee and in the middle of what little open space there was! Was that on purpose? Or do the employees not realize that there is a disc golf course here? I know strollers in the park don't.
Its been a while since we have played here. And it showed. I threw into the water at hole 2 (and had to wade in to retrieve the disk). John did on hole three. Ken did on hole seventeen.
There were no birdies today for anyone. Although I had a chance on hole 15.
The dam construction is ongoing. They have cleared out all the plants and trees on both sides. I wonder why. Are they going to lay cement on the cleared area?
It was also interesting to hear that our new meetup member, Cory, had somehow came across this blog when he was searching for information about the course at the Rivery in Georgetown. They tried searching for the tees and did not find them. So he looked around and saw this blog. We happened to be playing at that course. So, when he told his friend that people were playing it, his friend thought that we were playing a joke. Small world, I guess.
It sounded like he only saw the rather poor pictures on this blog rather than the full course photos here.
They are really tearing up the IBM site. IBM has all but disappeared from the West side of Burnet. Apparently, with all of the new buildings that are being built, they need to beef up the run-off of water. So they are expanding an already huge collection pond to be huger.
There is another building going up close to the new road that they put in to access the Domain.
While we waited for Jon to show up, we showed Doug Big Three. I don't think that he was impressed...
Our first real game was Race for the Galaxy. This time, I started off with Old Earth. And it looked like I should be focusing on a trading/shipping strategy. So I tried that out. However, I started off too slow. It took me a while to get my first planet, an alien robotic factory (cost 6), down. I was able to get down replicant robots (-2 settle) and terraforming robots (1 more card when settle). It seemed that I was quite the robotic -philiac person.
No one was producing. That hurt me. And I noticed that it took three turns in order to get a high value card down (produce, trade, develop/settle). I couldn't really latch on to other people's selections to help me shorten that cycle down. Also, I didn't really get down good level 6 development cards. The Galactic Rennaissance and the Galactic Federation didn't give me huge bonuses. But it was enough to get me 2nd place.
It has been a while since we have played Tichu. So sad. I started off with some bad luck. On my first hand, I random-wished my partner's two-bomb. But he still called and made Tichu. In first three hands, I did not see an Ace. So on the fourth hand, when I had a risky Tichu hand, I went for it. I wished for an Ace to try and promote my hand a little bit. But I called out Jon's Ace.
For the last hand, if we called GrandTichu, made it, and scored more than 35 points we would win. Unfortunately, that was not the case.
| GT/T | Team #1 | GT/T | GT/T | Team #2 | GT/T |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MarkH & Jon | Doug & John | ||||
| 115 | T+ |
85
|
|||
|
170
|
30 | T- | |||
|
225
|
T+ | 175 | |||
| 425 | 175 | ||||
| T- | 375 | 225 | |||
|
465
|
T+ | 335 | |||
| 505 |
395
|
||||
| 545 |
455
|
||||
| 545 | 655 | ||||
|
650
|
550 | T- | |||
|
715
|
485 | T- | |||
| 715 | 685 | ||||
| 760 | T+ |
840
|
|||
|
850
|
850 | ||||
|
815
|
T- | 985 | T+ | ||
| 660 | GT- |
1040
|
This is a picture, not taken, of a cloudless twilight sky that was all shades of blue, indigo, and violet. Two planes, flying off to exotic locales in the sunset were poised like comets -- their contrails colored in fiery hues of red and orange.
There were a lot of people at the meetup again this week. Enough for two groups again. We played at Wilco. Curt showed up after a long absence and beat Gravitt, who had practiced at Wilco three times earlier that week.
Man, it has been a while since I have played Pillars of the Earth. And I don't know why. It seems good enough. Although there is less fighting over resources with three people.
John introduced us to a three player climbing game called Big Three. There are more combinations than Tichu but no bombs. With sixteen cards, you have more flexibility in what you can play. The winner of an initial bid gets four extra cards and is playing against the other two people. If the winner goes out first, then the other two people give the winner the amount of points. Otherwise, if someone on the opposing team goes out first, then the winner gives both people the points in the bid.
When Jon called last hand, I was ahead of John by 5 points. So John had to make a three point bid and go out first. Fortunately, for myself, Jon and I were able to set him (and Jon did the right thing even though he was last with no hope of catching second place).
Grr! UPS left my package out on the front porch. Normally, there is nothing wrong with that. But, today, it was pouring out. Its not like the rain was a surprise or anything. Why can't they wrap it in plastic in these cases? Like newspaper carriers do.
The meetup group went to Rivery. This time there were 10 people? Gah! Far too many! My group proved to be much faster that John's. He was still on 13 when we finished. Jon had left immediately when we finished. No one seemed interested in lunch, so I went off on my own. To Monument Cafe -- my new favorite restaurant.
Once in a great while Jon will actually play disc golf on a Friday. He picked a hot one! Technically it is still winter, but you would not believe it by looking at the thermometer.
Jon met up with Paul Weitkemper waiting at the course and he joined up for a game. It seemed like a small world when we found out that he worked at Tivoli.
Man my truck is getting old. And I think it is older than me in truck years the way I drive it. The only problem is that I don't know what to buy next.
Doug wanted to play Brass again with all of the rules correct. And Jon obliged. I started off by building a cotton mill for 12 and a canal for 3. My next turn was the same thing. On the third turn, I took a loan (having spent all of my money) and then shipped both mills. Fortunately, no one else shipped cotton to an external market. And I was able to net 5 dollars for my missing ports.
I started off at the end of the first round last in points. But, to make up for that, I had a good revenue source. I was able build one harbor. And then Doug opened up Barrow-in-Furness. I thought about it and decided to build another harbor there as well. It took most of my money, and I was hobbled after that for the rest of the game. I could only build one high-value cotton mill a turn. In the end, I don't think that it mattered. No one else was able to catch me.
In a perfect world, I would live in the same complex as Central Market. I would buy groceries daily and shop the market for what ever mood strikes me. This time, I wound up with
The ten best post-apocalyptic survival vehicles link via
After being cited 32 times for not wearing a seatbelt, driver finally dies in a collision link via
Lamp powered by gravity was not thought through link via
Free eBooks from Baen link via
The Onion movie trailer (NSFW) link via
The amount of plastic in one albatross' stomach (page 181) link via
Eric and the Dread Gazebo link via
Catch up to Battlestar Galactica in 8 minutes (spoilers, duh) link via
I tried this recipe again with some left-over bread from Gumbo's. And it is amazing how differently it turned out during the making of it. This time, I reduced an entire 14 ounce can of Young's Double Chocolate Stout to a couple of ounces. I took the pan off of the burner and added 4 ounces of chocolate chips. After melting and mixing the chocolate into a smooth consistency, I added 3/4ths of a cup of brown sugar (whoops, it should have been 1/4). I then added a cup of cold heavy cream. And added three beaten eggs.
This time, the mixture had a consistency of pudding! It even tasted like it (yes, I risked salmonella poisoning to try it). It was pretty good. Because I didn't have enough dried bread cubes, I cooked the leftover mixture in the oven along with the bread pudding. And this is what it turned into. The volume almost doubled. The only negative thing about it was a little bit of water that seeped out during eating. This thing looks like a brownie. And I wonder if eating it with the soaked bread cubes will make it seem even more like a brownie...
The meetup group went to Zilker park to play on the "South" course. There were a bunch of new people including a nine year old. This group took forever to play. One of the problems was that Robin brought her dog and could not throw a disc and control the dog at the same time. Fortunately, someone stepped up and took control of the leash.
It was also disappointing in that we were supposed to go canoing on Town Lake afterwards but we didn't. I also wanted to try Flip Happy Crepes which is right next to the park. But I couldn't convince Gravitt to experiment with food.
We did stop at Uncle Billy's on Barton Springs Road. It was a Bar-B-Queue and micro-brewery joint. The beer was so so. One of them was bitter enough to require limes. The "sliders" were very disappointing.
Wow, I actually got to play Brass. We still had some rules confusions. So this game has to rate in the top ten of obtuse games. Doug did a good showing of trying to catch me with my shipyards by building some high value cotton mills laying valuable track. But it wasn't enough.
During the Meetup, Ed wanted to play it (for his first time). Unfortunately, it was difficult to recruit even a third player. Fluffy Susan hosed us once again by playing Pandemic. This time, Ed had printed out some helpful player aids which clarified most of the niggly rules. But, even this time, we had managed to miss some points.
I've been wanting to make some chocolate covered strawberries and this weekend, I finally took the plunge. I have learned a lot of things in the process.
The first rule is Mise en Place. Prepare everything before you start cooking. For example, do not wash and dry the strawberries as you individually place them in the chocolate. This only slows down the cooking and can lead to burned things.
Watch the melting chocolate in a double broiler carefully. Once the water comes to a boil, turn it down to a bare minimum. Do not let the chocolate get too hot. Do not let the water run out in the broiler section. This only allows the top to get hotter and discolors the pan.
Do not attempt to rescue chocolate that has too much moisture cooked out of it (see above for reasons why this might have happened). Adding wet or dry goods to hot chocolate will cause it to seize. And now you have lost the tempering. A broken chocolate looks a lot different than tempered chocolate.
And in taking this picture, I have learned some things about food photography. I need a props library. I only have one set of plates, a section of marble, and some plastic cutting mats. These are not very photogenic items.
I can see why you need food stylists. The strawberries have been sitting in the refrigerator and collected condensation. Wicking away the moisture with a napkin was fun. Also, some moisture has weeped out of the strawberries. I had to clean up that mess after the strawberries were in place.
Hot halogen lights will melt chocolate. Set up the camera and the lighting, with a dummy in place to work on focus, color balancing and placement. At the last second, transfer the strawberries in and take photos.
I also tried soaking a batch of strawberries in Wild Strawberry Schnapps before covering them with chocolate. The liquor was not as intense as I hoped it would be. Maybe, for the next time, I need to think about ways to get rid of the moisture in the strawberries before I attempt to replace it with flavored alcohol. Perhaps with salt? Or maybe a food dehydrator?
Disc golf and eating at Dos Salsas caused me to arrive late. I walked in on Chapel playing an Ameritrash game!
Jon was just starting to play Glory To Rome (which he had just played Thursday night). Since Nick and John were wanting to play Bridge and this was a game day, I jumped into the GtR game. I am liking this game less and less. It seems that the cards are not well balanced. For example, in this game Jon built a Garden. This allowed him to hire four more clientèle (for a total of six). Now, with three brown clients, he has a huge advantage in building new buildings with the Craftsman. The game is pretty much over at that point. Unfortunately, it drug on for another half an hour.
Ed wanted to play Brass. And this was the reason why I drove up to this game day. Unfortunately, we could not get a game going for lack of other players. Sigh. So I opted to play TtA instead.
I don't know how I survived in this game. My army was pathetically weak! I was ripe for an assault. Fortunately, I was only attacked three times (one where I lost three science, and two where I let Chapel attack me even though I had defense cards). I was able to eventually get my army up to be only a couple of points behind after many turns. In this game, I only saw two tactics cards. This is the one flaw of this game. And that is the random nature of the military deck draw. I really think it should be fixed where you draft military cards like you draft the normal cards.
I was definitely ahead in the victory point generation. And they finally called it when I finished the wonder that gave me 24 points.
We played a couple hands of Escalation and it was painful because none of the cards that I drew matched up with others in my hand. Not much you can do with that except grimace and bear it.
We then moved on to Wizard, which is a much better card game. But one that I have not played in a while. We didn't even use the big clicky wheels. How flawed! I played a perfect game and did not miss any of my predictions. I also beat Nick, who played perfectly -- only less so.
At least I was able to play Elfenwizards again. It is a negotiation game that uses dice. The only problem was that this game drug on for twice as long as it should have. And, because of that, I started to get distracted.
There were seven of us today playing at Wilco. I teamed up with John and we initially had a great start. We converted my above throw in for a birdie on hole two. And got another birdie on hole five (thanks to a lucky throw of mine). But we petered out after that and fell out of the lead. We did almost catch up at the end though.
The only problem was that our group took forever to play! Three hours!!! We didn't finish until 1pm. This meant that the bright light started to give us sunburns.
