May 2009 Archives

Melonpan link1 link2 via

Timescapes Timelapse: Learning to Fly link via

Laser engraved dollar bills link via

Did you fall for it? link via

Composites from a street corner link via

Prosciutto lance link via

How to make Totoro cream puffs link via

Dual truck big load link via

nine words you might think came from science but which are really from Science Fiction link via

Vintage DHARMA ads link via

Typesetting the World's Largest Known Prime Number link via

Ink dissolving in water link via

Slow motion movies (1,000 fps) link via

How to inflate a tire quickly link via

30 Ways to electrocute yourself link via

Four Corners marker, where states meet, is off by 2 1/2 miles link via

Sand castles link via

California Sun Bounce link via

Tree frog eating a christmas light link via

Parkour on a bicycle link via

Fluid scuplture link via

Japanese packaging for single servings link via

The man who painted his face every day of the year link via

Face mining Star Trek link via

Traking Soviet space launches link via

The greatest prank call ever link via

Circuitry Snacks link via

The old mint in downtown SF painted by 7 perfectly mapped HD projectors link via

A whole chicken in a can link via

Pizzamimicry can lead to improved micro-motors link via

At the Escher homestead link via

Happy Gillmore swing link via

Honda Insight - Let it shine link via

Restoring NASA's high-resolution scans of the moon link via

British Choir Sings "What's My Age Again?" link via

World's tiniest lamp spans quantum and classical physics link via

McSweeney's + Pirate Supply Store + Studant Language Help link via

How To: build the ultimate, cheap home pizza oven link via

Days with my father link via

Photos with pulp fiction books link via

.50 caliber bullet ricochet link via

Roomba flight pattern link via

Automated egg printer link via

EarthTainer (self-watering vegetables in a container) link via

Robotic beer launching refrigerator link via

Amazing amateur beatboxer link via

Pancake man link via

Making the original Star Trek look like the new movie link via

Where Trekkies were born link via

Mona Tweeta II link via

Top 10 Most Common Ingredients in Fast Food link via

Too much Photoshop? link via

Pizza vending machine link via

Anatomy of the McNugget link via

Cool concept link via

Capturing the transit of the Space Shuttle across the Sun link via

On Assignment: A Photo Op link via

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party link via

The tiny art director link via

Rubic cube font generator link via

Last Day Dream link via

Tokyo time lapse link via

Twitter image encoding challenge link via

Dice-O-Matic mark II generates 1.3 million rolls a day link via

Eating on $1/day link via

Big Mess O' Wires link via

Knit Night Cupcakes link via

How to make a Snickers bar... blindfolded link via

TED Dan Ariely on our buggy moral code link via

Mr. Squirrel discarded what looks to be a walnut shell next to a tree in my backyard. Where is there a Walnut tree around here? Pecan, sure. But Walnut? Around my neighborhood?!

I got a new bank card in the mail. Before I threw out the old card, I just had to take a picture of my picture for posterity's sake. Quite obscured and worn out if you ask me...

During my morning bike ride, there were four hot-air balloons in the sky! And by the time I made it to Chandler and 1460, it looked like they were going to land in one of the fields. There were four support vehicles waiting on the side of the road. One balloon was coming down before me. But it looked like they were aborting the landing? The gondola was tilted at a crazy angle and the burner was on full. I didn't stick around to watch what happened next though.

I played at OSPW. And had a great day. Two back-to-back birdies on holes 2 & 3. And on hole 17 as well. Unfortunately, I also got 4 bogeys. So I ended one over par.

Someone bringing in their business mailings during lunchtime. Sigh.

I made Dulce de Leche again. I started with a gallon of whole milk, two cups of honey and two cups of sugar. I reduced it down for hours until it was dark and jelly-like. It turned into about 2 1/2 pounds. Which is a lot of dulce.

I made a bowl of oatmeal. I then fried up a ripe plantain banana, and put a tablespoon of dulce in it. Mmm, good.

The BGG community gave me another recipe to try:

Cut Emmenthaler cheese into the shape of a cracker
Sprinkle both sides with dried Oregano
Fry the cracker in a hot pan until crispy
Top with a dab of Dulce de Leche
Sprinkle a tiny bit of Cinnamon on top
Place a leaf of fresh Basil on top
Drizzle with Balsamic Vinegar

2 lanes of northbound traffic on IH-35 were shutdown this morning when someone crashed into a truck painting lane stripes. This caused severe paralysis. The onlookers going southbound brought that direction to a standstill as well.

I thought that I could just take surface streets south to 620 and past the problem. However, that proved problematic. My first mistake was taking Old Settlers road west. The only north/south road before IH-35 is Mays and that is only a couple of hundred feet away. Traffic was already backed up way before I could turn on Mays. Then there was construction on Mays and 79 that took away a couple of lanes. 79 going west was already stopped. And I missed the traffic light because people had blocked the intersection instead of waiting for the next light. Sigh. 620 was not that good either. But I finally made it to the highway and into work. Only 30 minutes late for my department meeting.

There is just no good solution for times like these. A fatal flaw in where I live, apparently.

The entrance to the Domain across the street from IBM finally opened up a couple of months ago. And I just got around to walking over to eat lunch at the Domain. Man, you can hardly tell that this was once an IBM site. As more time progresses, the visual clues will become less and less. There are still some mounds of grass covered dirt around. But I am sure that they will be gone eventually.

One annoying thing is the complete lack of sidewalks around here. Aren't there building codes that demand that sidewalks be built?!

I tried making fresh dough this time. I poured some hot tap water into a cup and then weight it (280 grams). I poured the contents of one yeast packet in and one tablespoon of sugar. I then measured out 80% of the water's weight for the flour (224 grams). Giving it a hydration percentage of 125%. I let it go crazy on the counter for a couple of hours and then put it in the refrigerator overnight. Around 4pm the next day I was ready to make the dough.

Man, it smelled strongly of alcohol! Too much yeast at the start for sure. I added 233 grams more flour to bring the final ratio to 5:3 and the final hydration to 60%.

I like the new regulator in the grill. The temperature now gets up to 800 degrees Fahrenheit. Which brings the cooking time down to 5 minutes.

We went to the Rivery today and I started off great. Two back-to-back birdies. The rest of the day went downhill from there though. But I still had fun...

Princes of the Renaissance

We started out with another game of Princes of the Renaissance. In this game, I went after a strong military at the start. Oddly, no one bought the pope for any of the eras in order to gang up on someone. I kept even in battles won and shares in the strong countries at the end. However, I was able to buy a number of artists who were worth victory points at the end. And this was the thing which won me the game.

Race for the Galaxy

We finished up the night with a couple of games of Race for the Galaxy. Man, this game is becoming over-played...

The blackberries looked good at Sam's so i bought two containers of them. Of course, I made a cobbler out of them with a cookie dough topping. The only problem was that it turned out too watery. The cornstarch didn't do its job and turn that water into jelly. Maybe I should pre-cook half of the berries into a real jelly first? Next time...

Lately, I have been drinking Lemonaid or Limeaid at Monument Cafe. Which are pretty good. So it got me thinking of trying to make my own. So I came up with this recipe:

Squeeze the juice of 15 limes
Squeeze the juice of 12 lemons
Combined, the juice measured 800ml
Add 2 times this amount of water (1600ml)
Add 400 grams Organic Raw Blue Agave

I kind of eyeballed the agave sweetener. The result was not sweet at all. It is good and tart!

Well, the weather forecast yesterday proved to be wrong. Rain was supposed to start around 3pm.

The day started off good. I was able to bike for 30 miles. It didn't rain and it didn't look like it was going to rain. So I headed down to Cat Hollow to meet Jon. Just as I was about to arrive it started to rain heavily. We decided to wait it out. There was a moment when we were going to wait at Jon's house but the rain lessened and we headed out to the course.

Wow, talk about flash flooding. There was a pretty swift river now running through the course. And we had to cross it a number of times. It only gave me one problem on Hole 5. My second throw landed right into it. At first, we thought that the disc was lost downstream somewhere. But Jon was able to spot it stuck in some grass.

I was able to get a couple of birdies. Which is great considering just how wet and slippery the discs got.

On hole 10, my second throw went horribly awry. It was raining pretty hard and we were soaking wet. I was walking around trying to find my disc when I hear a voice yelling at us "Do you have a yellow disc?" Jon nods. "It is close to the basket." Someone on the third floor of the apartment complex boarding the hole had opened their window and was helping us. I continued looking around and then I hear "Do you have a pink disk?" I vigorously nod. "It is over the fence in the complex." Sigh. When I had thrown it, the wind must have taken it over the fence. It was out of reach and there was no way to climb the fence. I was extremely grateful when the person volunteered to walk down with an umbrella and retrieve my disk for me! I thanked him and found out he was a fellow disc golfer.

Glory To Rome

Mike hosed the weekly game night by holding a Lost season finale showing. Since I could only get one other person interested in games, I had to cancel and went to Mike's instead. He surprised me my calling me early and having a game. They were up for yet another game of Race For The Galaxy. Even though his birthday present was the new Vinci-like game Small World. I definitely wanted to try that out. But they didn't want to spend the time to read the rules. So I forced them to play Glory To Rome instead. Which is very RFtG like, but it is set in Rome instead of Sci-Fi.

We went to Wilco for some disc golf. Man, the cops were out in force there catching speeders. There were four officers standing out there with radar detectors. Conveniently enough, a construction zone just started there which doubled the fines. I spotted them from far away and drove slow.

Today was a good day. The weather was good and I got a birdie on hole 12.

I was also able to long putt a birdie on hole 17! Which I had never done before. Sweet!

Caylus Magna Carta

We started out light with a game of Caylus Magna Carta. It has been a while since I have played this game. I was the only one to build a blue building and that was more than enough for a win.

Race For The Galaxy

I wanted to move on to another game but this group seems stuck on RFtG. Gah! For the first game, I had the perfect set of cards. I don't think I have have seen that happen before. My homeworld was Epison Eridani. I came across the Star Nomad Lair immediately giving me +1 for selling blue. The Spice World and Export Duties increased selling blue to +4. The Secluded World and Gem World allowed me to ship blue for victory points. With my income, I was able to play Galactic Federation, Galactic Survey: Seti and New Economy. This more than gave me the win.

The next game was the complete opposite for me! I started with New Sparta. This is quite a simple strategy. Keep growing you military strength and then lay down the two 6-value military bonus cards. However, I never saw any military strength cards. All I did was explore +5 and I could not find a one. Jon (who was on my left) apparently drew them all. And played them. Sigh. There was not much that I could do to save the game but I did tie for last place.

The Worlds Biggest Disc Golf Weekend was on! Unfortunately, we didn't go down to Twin Parks Country Club on Saturday. But we did make it to Zilker Park on Sunday. There were not huge crowds out there. But the course was certainly packed. We had to wait for most of the time that we played.

Both the North and the South courses were open. And I had some easy birdies.

We went at at lunch down at Wahoo's and had some fish tacos. And we made it back up in time for the prize drawing. Not many people were present so we had some good odds. Unfortunately, Jon and I did not win anything.

It looks like some T'ai Chi-athon was going on at Zilker park as well.

We decided to try out a new course called Brushy Creek. It is located South-West from the corner of Parmer Lane and Brushy Creek Road. It is a new course and it is only 9 holes long. So we played it twice.

The were some mutant weeds that were in bloom. They were pretty with the bees buzzing around them.

For nine holes, the course is quite challenging. There is not much open areas -- only tight alleys. There is a stream running around. And there is some height changes.

Also, the train tracks run on one side of the course. So we heard the Commuter train practice running back and forth.