Hello Kinsale

Finally arrived in Kinsale after a couple of days in England to recover from jetlag. I was in Kinsale back in release 8 (2004?), so I remember it. Not much to the town actually - big harbor and lots of shops along it. The place has grown, but it's still a really cool place to see.

We'd better like it, since we're going to live there for six months.

King Arthur's Round Table

Yep, that's the real thing - well, kind of. While visiting Linda for a couple of days before heading off to Kinsale, we stopped in Winchester, and visited the home of Kind Arthur's Round Table. OK, so it was built in the 13th century, so couldn't actually be related to the inspiration to King Arthur - but it was still pretty cool - and pretty old.

Off to Kinsale

Off to Kinsale (Ireland) and Basingstoke (England) for a week. I have a requirements session for the warehouse project, and then I have some followup work in Basingstoke. Will post details later.

Friday Dinner

Had a dinner party Friday night - Rebecca Stevens, Debbi Bennett, Jeff and Judy Berty, and Tim and Cheryl all came.

Nothing too crazy for dinner - simple appetizers, an amuse bouche of fish sandwiched between sweet potato crisps and an artichoke cheese spread, a squash soup, a morel mushroom cream sauce with puff pastry, an Argentinian beef dish (flank steak stuffed with a spinach dressing), cheese and salad (duh), another french chocolate cake dessert called 'coulant au chocolat', and then coffee.

Eskimos may have 300 different words for snow, but the french have 300 ways to say 'chocolate cake' - this coulant is perhaps one of the better ones for a dinner party, since it stays in the frig until the bitter end and only takes 10 minutes to cook in the oven (think chocolate souffle).

Still need to work on doing all the cooking beforehand to make time to actually sit at the table.

Team Building at Brougher

Back to Basics with Power Tools

Soapbox of the month post . . .

Had an interesting conversation with Tim Whittaker this past Saturday. He was watching a program, where they were taking various ingredients, and then asking the audience what it made. What were the ingredients?

Water, high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated coconut and palm kernel oil, polysorbate 60, sodium caseinate, sorbitan monostearate, xanthan and guar gums.

Before you guess, here are some hints...hydrogentated coconut and palm kernel give the product a 'creamy' taste, polysorbate 60 (a chemical precursor to anti-freeze) and sodium casainate keep the oil and water mixed, sorbitan monosteatate is a synthetic wax sometimes used in hemorrhoid cream that prevents the magical product from liquifying in the refrigerator, xanthan and guar gums are used as thickeners and to prevent ice crystals from forming in the product.

Know what it is yet? If you guessed 'Cool Whip', you win. Yes, I know there wasn't any diary product on the list - that's because Cool Whip is a NON-dairy creamer.

Considering some whipping cream and a little sugar in a mixer for 3 minutes makes a product that is far superior in taste (do I have to explain that one), cost (1/2 the price of the whipped 'air'), and health (high fructose corn syrup has been proven the fastest way to become obese) - I had to ask myself what other things do we do that would make my great grandmothers go "What are you thinking?"

So looking back over my past posts on making butter, soap, and canning, I realize I need a new category called 'Basics', where I explore various experiments in 19th century ways of doing things with the help of a KitchenAid mixer or other power tools.

New Baby on the Way

This is Violet, and yep, she's that adorable.

Scott and Kathleen Schuetz of Ya-Ya fame (and the previous owners of our current house) have survived the People's Republic of China's adoption quagmire (remember their bureaucracy is about 20 times older than ours, so stop complaining about the IRS). They are weeks away from adopting this beautiful, soon to be painfully spoiled, girl from China.

They leave for China at the end of October, I believe, so let's have a collective crossing of the fingers to make sure everything goes smoothly. To get the whole story, Kathleen had started a blog some time ago. Even though I've almost spoiled the ending, start at the beginning.

Goodbye Cubicle with a view

Yep, this is the view out of my window at work. And it's gone.

Now that I'm moving on the this new role in Kinsale, they are kicking me out of the ManOps area - hence I lose my cubicle. I think they're going to put me in the basement somewhere - like yesterday's trash ;)

Pickling Cucumbers

I know this looks a little disturbing, but I pickled some cucumbers. It just turns out that I didn't have enough regular vinegar, and too much balsamic vinegar - so the cucumbers are a bit brownish. We'll see how they turn out.

Soap Making

Sorry for the horrible picture, I'll try to find another one - but you get the idea.

After a suggestion from Tom Blake at work, I went ahead and made a couple of bars of homemade soap. Instructions can be found here, but the basic idea is take some fat (olive oil and Crisco), add some lye mixed with water(careful with that step), and then beat the heck out of it until it starts to thicken. Pour in molds and wait for it to do its thing.

I did go ahead and 'superfat' the soap with jojoba oil. Basically, once the soap thickens you can add a little special fat at the end to give the soap some other characteristics. In this case, the soap is really good to wash your face now.

And with most of these things, you can add and experiment until your heart's content - and there are tons of recipes on the internet for special types of soap (e.g. oatmeal, shaving, laundry, etc.)