Wednesday, December 25, 2024 →
Snow sculptures from a very wintery Berlin in early December 2023 
Food
Today we made a quick visit to the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge. There’s no missing the White Fronted Geese now and there’s still plenty of dragonflies but there’s no significant population of migratory songbirds yet #SacramentoWildlifeRefuge #BirdWatching #Dragonfly #Fujifilm #SOoC
I’ve had Grado SR–125 headphones for almost 20 years now. I’ve neglected them the last ten years. Their second set of L cushions were disintegrating, so I splurged on official G cushions. They’re so good. They fit entirely over my ears instead of sitting along the edges (that made my ears ache pretty fast). #Gradolabs
In World of Warcraft’s War Within, I have made it to Dornogal. My Druid hasn’t died yet. Not sure if that means I’m badass or that first part of the game is purposefully easy to solo 🤔 Enjoying it so far #WoW
Asian pears are ready for fresh eating! The yellow ones are New Century and the brown ones are Hosui. Our nectarines were hammered by the heat and recently got bug infested. But we harvested what we could & cooked them down. #HomeOrchard #AsianPears 
Smoke from thr Park Fire has, for the first time, obviously made it to the surface of the west side of the Sacramento Valley. I can smell it and the Purple sensor reports above 170 AQI #ParkFire #CAWx #AirQuality
Our avocado tree seems to be producing now. But I won’t bet on any of the fruit making it to maturity sometime between this November and next March. Brutal heat is inbound though we’ve got our shade cloth up to protect the small trees 
My spouse took a page from Korean cuisine and made a nice gochujang-based BBQ sauce for tonight’s sweet potato & kale burgers 📷 #MBApr 
I’m going to try participating in micro.blog’s April photo challenge. So each day in April I’ll post one photo based on a word given by micro.blog. I’ve skipped the last few challenges.
This big espresso toy at Eddie World in Beatty, Nevada, is ridiculously complex! #MBApr
I never appreciated how electric ovens do not exhaust heat like gas ovens. This new oven of ours (with induction cooktop) will be nice during the summer. For the induction, there’s been a learning curve. Mostly that heat is instant and boiling is FAST. Using a pressure cooker is crazy efficient.
Death Valley Road Trip Part 5
Saturday, March 23, 2024
Most of the second full day at Death Valley!
On our induction stove, just a regular silicon mat under heavy cookware is good to protect the surface. EM easily passes through the mat & still direct heats the cookware. Those mats are useful! Baking, candy, and now this. 
I’ve been waiting for this compact flight simulator controller for over a year. I’m pretty excited about it. Made in the USA, which for electronics, isn’t easy! #AvGeek #FlightSim #YawManArrow Orders for the Yawman Arrow begin Jan. 8 – Yawman
Guten Morgen! Yesterday, after arriving at Frankfurt, Germany, we had lunch with jet-lag friendly alkoholfrei Bier. Today, in an hour, we’re catching a train to Berlin. #TravelPhotography 
Here’s the turkey that appeared out of a hollow at Point Reyes National Seashore (years ago) and tried to steal our lunch. #Birds 🪶
This morning, House Finches were breakfasting on ripe elderberries in our backyard. #HouseFinch #BirdsOfMastodon #BirdWatching #Fujifilm
It is a few degrees warmer outside but 10% less relative humidity. The whole house fan made it more comfortable in a few minutes & humidity is dropping like a rock in here. Was 60%. I love it.
Got sick of ArcGIS Pro 3.1’s Export Layout not saving export settings per Layout. So Export settings from one layout end up carrying forward to others especially if you don’t hit the Export Layout button. So made a quick Python script to stop the insanity. Jupyter notebooks are nice. #GIS
This was one of two batches of mandarins juiced today for this week’s breakfast 😋
Almost done making the caramel. Just needs to hit 250°F
I’m going to make caramel today. Alton Brown’s Dark Caramel recipe never fails. Though I prefer a little less dark so I cut the highest temp from 350 to 340°F and then the final temp to 250°F (makes them a tad softer).
Wednesday, November 23, 2022 →
My contribution to Thanksgiving is cleaning up the kitchen after major steps are completed by my wife & cranberry sauce. Can’t wait for tomorrow. Lots of prep today!
Phat Tyre Ale is now fermenting. A couple of mistakes were made but nothing critical (probably). It’s getting easier and less stressful every time as I refine my protocols. Original gravity at 1.048-1.050. Close to the documented 1.052!
I just turned the compost and wow those soaking rains bring the FATTEST volunteer earthworms into the compost (or encourages them to gorge & get happy in the compost). We do have volunteer resident worms in the compost, though in the summer they stay at the very bottom.
Going to try Northern Brewer's Phat Tyre Ale Extract Beer Recipe Kit this Winter. Will be the first time with secondary fermentation.
Found European Fanta at World Market yesterday, and it goes very well with pizza. Fanta being slightly sweet and made using actual juice is so good.
Saturday, September 17, 2022 →
In California, our baking season has begun. Inaugurated with Pineapple Upside-Down Cake.
I emergency bought a Ratio 6 coffee maker after my old Ninja broke. Best of all, and I didn’t know about this, @RatioCoffee just refunded the cost ‘cuz I won their drawing 🎉 can’t remember the last time I won anything this good!
Spotted a Hooded Oriole in the front yard as we we started an after lunch walk. What luck. A first!
Our homemade Bulgogi fries. Inspired by a food show that had a terrible implementation of this idea. We got it right 🤫
