Steak and Shrimp

Lego Contraption 1

Suzanne sent me a Klutz book of Lego contraptions that came with a bunch of gears and other bits & bobs.

Today I made the Rubber Band Racer (with optional ratchet.)



Here it goes:



I think Audrey is a bit concerned.

Temps in Buffalo Grove

Curtis meant to bring along a little temperature data recorder with him on our trip to Buffalo Grove this week. I thought it would have been interesting to see but he forgot... so I dug some data up from Weather Underground.



We arrived late Monday night (around midnight) to enjoy the peak temperatures of the week. Never mind that it was snowing and we really had no idea where we were going except for some directions that we couldn't exactly follow 100% because of construction and detours.

Tuesday night we were brave enough to scrape off the car and venture out for dinner. Wednesday night it was getting colder still so we chickened out and ate at the hotel.

Thursday morning (see the lowest dip in the little red line above) we went out in the -4 degree temps to load up and scrape off the car again. We were out there for maybe 2-3 minutes but it felt like 20. Just walking forward with any exposed skin at -4 creates enough wind chill to make you feel numb.

101 Cookbooks: exploring cookbooks, one recipe at a time

Just wanted to share a nice blog/journal I came across this weekend:




101 Cookbooks is very nicely composed, sampling from all sorts of things and steering toward healthy foods. Many of the recipes appear basic and easily achievable (cooking doesn't have to be "hard".)

The photographs are top-notch and make me hungry.

(looks like the herbivores should be pretty happy with it as well)

Proper Clock

Jeff's Pastry of the Day

Not sure what it was but it went pretty quick.

Edit: Jeff said this one wasn't very good.

Digital Clocks in the Classroom

How will we explain "clockwise" when all the analog ones are gone?

Jeff's Donut

And coffee.

Jeff's Cupcake

Looks yummy.

Still Snowing

But that doesn't phase anyone here.

Buffalo Grove

Yes it was 4 after midnight local time. But we finally made it to the
hotel parking lot. That's Jeff and Curtis in the snow drift.

Cat Magnets II

for Hans:

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Thanks to text-image.com.

Cat Magnets

Mmmm..... heating pads for a snowy day.



Each has to have their own.



I don't know which is worse.. my n800 camera or my Sidekick camera. I'm kind of liking the lo-fi crappiness of then n800 better.

Ugh!!!

Free Public WiFi!

Ever since I got the n800 I've been noticing these "Free Public WiFi" ad-hoc networks near any hotel, airport etc. They are totally useless.

I found a nice article at WLAN BOOK that explains it all:
http://www.wlanbook.com/2007/07/16/free-public-wifi-ssid/

Thank Microsoft (or stupid people or beer or George Bush if you'd rather) for the air pollution.

Not a Serena Libre

Barbar passed this one on to me from a book with a lot of Chilean goodies in it: The Serena Libre. (slight variation between Wikipedia and what we see here)



Well, for some reason I haven't been able to find plain papaya nectar at my local store. I know I can find some somewhere around here, I just haven't yet. So I used some papaya-pineapple nectar. So it's not a Serena Libre. I also used Peruvian pisco... so it's definitely not a Serena Libre since La Serena is in Chile.



I've probably violated both Chilean and Peruvian laws here. Then to top it off I put it in a tiki mug because... just because I wanted to.



Anyway.. it's not bad. I can tell that's it's just not what it's supposed to be because of the pineapple. The pineapple is just too prominent to let the subtle tastes of the pisco through. I have noticed int he meantime that the Chilean pisco has a little more flavor and aroma to it than the Peruvian pisco. Admittedly I've only tried one brand of each so far but I seem to prefer the Chilean. In any case they both rock when making a Pisco Sour with real limes.

The Tiki Bar is Open

Jeff got me this cool sign for my birthday yesterday. I decided to keep it here in the office until I have a home tiki bar.



It's pretty cool in that it looks like a neon sign but it's really using LED's for the lighting. They are all around the edges of the frame and light up the slightly raised graphics. This should have a pretty long life and use a lot less power than neon lighting (not to mention it does not give off much heat.)