Matthew Caron

On a lark, I recently picked up an Aerobie Aeropress Coffee & Espresso Maker ($30, shipped, Amazon).

I was skeptical at first, and to be honest, there is a knack to it. If you're making "American Coffee", you have to adjust the water to concentrate ratio to get it just right. Too much water and it tastes, well, watery. Too little and it tastes like some bad combination of drip and espresso - really horrid. Just right and the subtle complexities of the brew come out.

True to the advertising, it does brew a very low acid cup of coffee and this, combined with a low acid blend and a little milk or cream, should be very good for people with sensitive stomachs. The concentrate is also good for making iced coffee (pour concentrate over ice and let it melt it, add cold water to taste), and the ability to make single cups is very convenient (I want house blend, she wants hazelnut).

Speaking of flavored coffees, this is where this method really shines, allowing both the flavored syrup and the coffee to come through harmoniously. Liz was especially impressed, and I doubt she'll like flavored coffee any other way.

The filters are a fine paper microfilter and are all of $2 for 360. When making multiple cups at the same time, I reuse the old filter. If you really wanted to save them, you could. According to the site, it takes about as much paper to make 2000 of these filters as it does to make an average city newspaper, so the input costs are comparatively low. Output costs are nil, as worms love coffee and paper, so I throw them on the compost pile and the worms eat them up (unlike those horrible plastic K-Cups).

Further, the Aeropress light, sturdy and portable so you can use it to make coffee wherever you have ground beans and boiling water. I will likely take this on my next camping trip.

In conclusion:
- Does this replace the drip coffeemaker? No. Sometimes, you want to make a lot of coffee in an unattended fashion. A good drip coffeemaker is still necessary. Further, it makes a different cup of coffee. Without saying better or worse, it is just different.

- Does this replace the French press? No. After all, I still use that to brew tea. Further, the fine filter of the Aeropress allows for a very "clean" grind, where the French press gives a much more earthy, rich mouth feel. Once again, not better, but different.

- Does this replace the espresso machine? Maybe. I happen to like the espresso my machine makes, and the Aeropress turns out a slightly weaker cup without as much of a nice crema as the espresso maker produces. Plus, I'd need to get a separate frother for lattes and such, so I should just keep what I have.

- If I could only have one apparatus for making coffee and only coffee, what would it be? The Aeropress. However, if we remove the "and only coffee" restriction, I would go with the French press, as it makes tea as well.

- How will this affect my use of the drip coffeemaker, French press and espresso machine? The drip coffeemaker will now probably only be used a handful of times a year, because if I want a single cup of coffee, I'm going to use the Aeropress. The French press will be used about the same as it is now, because I really like the rich complexity and mouth feel which the press produces. The espresso machine will be used about the same because it makes a cup of espresso I like more. I may, however, use the Aeropress with flavored coffees to make flavored concentrate to which I add steamed milk and/or foam to make flavored lattes and cappuccino.

(hat tip to mkb_technologie and fearsclave)

Post 3 things you've done in your lifetime that you don't think anybody else on your friends list has done.

See if anybody else responds with "I've done that" (or perhaps "I've done something similar.")

(1) Geocaching in Alaska.

(2) Helped an old man who was stuck on his toilet at 3AM. (Fire service gets called for all manner of interesting jobs).

(3) Went dune buggying out in the Nellis dunes in Nevada.

Heller vs. DC, lolcat style.

I picked up the Alien Quadrilogy ($40, BJ's) and Alien vs. Predator ($10, BJs), while I was out buying a couple packs of ribs on Saturday.

Thing is, all I feel like doing is working on models and watching all the Alien movies. I'm very unmotivated and am fighting the urge to play hooky (but that is where the discipline and professionalism comes in).

At least it is a short week, and we have friends coming to visit.

Some thoughts I had on possible settings/adaptations for Spirit of the Century. Since FATE is such a flexible system, SotC lends itself to being used in.. well, anything even vaguely pulpy...

Spirit of the Gumshoe - I've mentioned this before, but basically FATE + GUMSHOE for investigations.

Spirit of the Shadowrun - A non-crunchy way to run adventures in the world of Shadowrun.

Spirit of the Doctor - Doctor Who.. This would likely be limited to a GM and two players (the Doctor and his Companion).

Spirit of the Rebellion - Star Wars

Spirit of the Federation - Star Trek

Spirit of the Deadlands - Deadlands. Of course, with the newer Deadlands using Savage Worlds, this may not actually be much better than Savage Worlds.. unless, of course, you've played SotC but not SW.

Other thoughts:

Warhammer 40K universe
Battletech

I had some more ideas, but it has stopped raining, so I'm going to bust out the weedwacker and tear it up.

article, written by a Mr. King

Logic:
(1) Criminals have ignored DC's handgun ban. To quote: "You thought D.C. stands for "District of Columbia? "Dodge City" is more like it."
(2) Said criminals are overjoyed at the Supreme Court decision, because they've been doing it for years, and now everyone else can too!
(3) This will lead to even more deaths and crime because now everyone will be having guns.

Someone look up aneurysm, I think I just had one from this logical disconnect.

Mr. King, allow me to lay it out for you:

The criminals don't care. You said so yourself - they've been ignoring and laughing at the law since it was enacted.

Therefore, all this law has done is disarm law abiding folks. Mr. Heller, in fact, is a security guard allowed to carry a gun at work - but not keep one in his home for defense.

History shows us that all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good to stand by and do nothing. If good people are ill-equipped to protect themselves, then they will be victims. If they can protect themselves, than the crime can be averted. The more crime is averted, the less crime there is. If we make crimes unsuccessful enough, then maybe said criminals will go out and get jobs.

Now, to be honest, I'd like to start seeing a greater body count - a steady stream of evil men filling the morgues rather than the prisons strikes me as an improvement.

For those who are not aware, today the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment guarantees* the individual right to keep and bear arms.

I have not read the whole opinion, but the crux of the decision as far as I am aware is that the DC gun ban is unconstitutional, but nothing explicit has been stated about what arms are protected and what are not, save that handguns are protected. Further, nothing has been stared about whether or not this applies to the states. As I said, I have not yet read the opinion, so I might be off.

* = Note the word here. Not "grants". Not "confers". Guarantees. As in, it is already existing and all this does is keep it going.

However, remember how I said that there were other lawsuits waiting in the wings? Well, the Second Amendment Foundation has filed suit to challenge Chicago's handgun ban. (Yes, the same day).

If this succeeds, then it will mean that Second Amendment protections apply to the states as well as the federal government. If that is the case, then we get to file suits challenging the various so called "assault weapon" bans.

Anyone hear that? It's bricks being pulled out of the foundation that anti-gunners have built up over the past seventy years.... Why? Because gun control does nothing, and folks who want to be responsible for their own safety and welfare are tired of having effective tools of self defense stripped from them.

I was working on my computer one afternoon this spring and I heard a thump from the sliding glass doors. There was nothing there, so I presumed it was expansion of the wood or glass.

Some time passed, and I went out to fire up the grill.

Sitting at the base of the door was a hummingbird. It had obviously hit the window. It was still alive, but could not move.

I called for Liz, because it is not often that one sees a hummingbird up so close. It was green, with beautiful iridescent feathers. So small and delicate, it was one of the most tragically beautiful things I have ever seen.

I put the poor little bird under a fallen tree branch, and it was gone by the morning. Whether it was eaten or recovered from the shock and flew away, I cannot say.

In about February or so, the cracks on the bottom of my laptop got so bad that I bought another one.

Last month, another drive died in my old workstation, leaving me with no spares, so I bought a new computer.

Now Liz's powermac (the one from the big mac supercomputer) has finally decided to flake out and spontaneously turn itself off - we suspect it is a problem with the motherboard, which means she might as well buy another machine. She's looking at a loaded iMac 24", which apparently includes an external DVI connector so she can rig up her 20" to it and run dual monitors.

So, this is 3 new computers at roughly a cost of $5000 in 6 months. Ouch.

So, this past week I was in RI at the office for work, and the cubicle farm is very noisy, so I was grateful for my noise canceling headphones. I had sushi at Seven Moons, visited URI, gamed with the old wednesday night crew (Flames of War, for the curious), and visited my brother and my folks.

On Friday, I headed up to Maine and went Whitewater rafting with these folks. It was a good time. They have a great facility there, with a very good restaurant and brewpub.

GPS stats:
Total distance = 1146.85 mi
Max speed: 89.3 mph
Average speed: 54.1 mph
Total Time: 21 hours 11 minutes

(This included a bunch of driving around Rhode Island too)

We rafted the Dead River, which was running about 6000cfm.. 3500 is normal. 4800 is high. It was a blast. We wanted to hit everything, and did pretty well... right up until the last big rapid, where we hit and lost half the people in the boat. I stayed in at first, until the boat turned around and I got hit from the other side, which swept me over the bow. I had the end of a rope, but I couldn't hold on and it was pulled from my grasp. At first, I waited for them to come and get me, but I realized they weren't coming right away, and I needed to do something to take care of the situation. I turned around, so I could see where I was going, instead of where I was coming from and therefore time my breathing for hitting the waves.

I realized it was getting rocky when I bashed both my knees on some rocks, and the other guides were yelling at me to come to them.. I was like "I can't make it to your boat, you're moving too fast", but then I realized that they just wanted me to get away from the rocks on that side.. which I was going to do anyway. So, I headed out that way, picking up a second paddle along the way (I already had mine). Putting them overlapping in opposite directions gave me a kayak style paddle and allowed me to use them to pull myself along much faster.

After the initial moment of panic, I wasn't really worried, because I am a strong swimmer and was timing my breathing so that I could breathe. I was really only concerned about catching a rock on my back or side, busting my ribs, and then I would be all done...

However, then the lads came in like the cavalry.. right over the top of a wave and plopped down right in front of me. They started paddling backwards to slow their momentum as the guide, Greg, offered me the end of an oar, pulled me close, and then he and Simon grabbed me and pulled me into the boat.

Lessons learned:
(1) Stay in the boat. It's better that way.
(2) Bring strong friends to haul your fat ass out of the water.

Plant Rights

In other news, we got the rest of the tomatoes and all the sweet peppers in tonight, and will do the broccoli, eggplant, hot peppers, herbs, onions, chives, and anything else I missed tomorrow night.

That leaves some seeds which we might have missed the window on (not sure, need to check), and the potatoes, which don't go in for another two weeks.

With firefighter 1 and everything being busy, our plantings are late, but hopefully not too late.

But habeas corpus is back.

At breakfast yesterday, I was sitting next to a group of young teachers. The exact specifics of their roles are uncertain. However, what really angered me was the fact that they were making fun of their students.

That, in and of itself is not unusual.. there are always the odd kids which give people pause.. but not here..

They were making fun of the smart ones.

Specifically, the students had to do some kind of math/science report.

One kid did nebulae. Another did linear algebra (apparently, he found it in a book and it fired his interest..). The teachers thought that the kids should have done something more normal, like the solar system, and that these kids had lost the rest of the students.

They they proceeded to ridicule the children's computer acumen, and how over their heads they were with regards to powerpoint, email, word processing, etc. The kids ask for help and they can't help them. These kids were maybe 25, and that would be guessing on the old side.

They also made fun of the discussions the children were having about alternative fuel sources and how to solve peak oil, because the kids started "talking about complex hydrocarbon chains which can be synthesized out of other feedstock, and then they just lost me because I didn't see what this had to do with gas".

The overall impression with which I was left was that these were more of the same teachers who didn't really want to teach and thought it would be easy, or couldn't hack it in their first major, so they left whatever it was and decided to teach instead. As such, they are outmatched by their pupils right from the get go.

Further, I bet that while I was hacking on computers and learning how all these bits go together, they were off engaged in more useful pursuits, like hanging out at the mall.

Luckily, not all teachers are so bad. Some actually want their kids to learn, reward interest and excellence and do not feel threatened when the student knows more than the teacher.

Anyway, to work.

I'm not doing BLITEOTW this year. Nothing against, it, just busy. :-)

After work, I broke in another field, maybe another 300 square feet or so. This brings us to five fields, totaling about 1500 square feet. The reason for the new field is that we were planting the tomato plants, we filled the field. One is full of peas, the other is full of corn. So, we're down to the last field, and we have another dozen tomato plants, two dozen pepper plants (4 different kinds or so), and two dozen eggplants or so.

On top of this we have seeds which need to go in soon - lettuce, radishes, etc.

I'm grabbing the about 20 square feet of one field for a perennial section for horseradish and garlic. That part is a pain to till anyway, so I might as well plant something I don't need to replant there.

This last field will likely have a few potatoes, but will be mostly the things I mentioned above.

I also found a 10 x 10 patch which I can break to make a strawberry patch for Liz.

I should mention that the complications with this field are the stumps. There used to be lots of apple trees, so there are a lot of old stumps, which I'm trying to avoid when laying out fields. Plus, you need to be able to get around the fields, so we have a whole series of squares, laid out oddly with rows about 6 feet wide between them (so that I can get the tractor and such in there).

I need to put the electric fence up. Keeps deer and zombies out. Can't have zombies in the corn, can you?



(Oh, and I have a kitten sleeping on my shoulder)

Hat tip to tonytraductor

97 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior Take the test!

Though my score is not nearly as high as his, likely because I could not check any of the "helps with children" bits, as we currently have none.

Outdoor dancing is bad, mmkay...

Also, a thought...

I went to a university (URI) which was a "dry" campus. This meant that large quantities of alcohol (more than a single 750ml bottle or 6 12 oz bottles of beer) were prohibited and the 21 drinking age was strictly enforced.

Anyone who went to URI will attest as to how much of a joke this actually was - there was policy and there was reality.

My thought:

Calling Washington, DC a gun free city is like calling URI a dry campus.

It is over. I passed, as did the other firefighter from my department.

I can say, without reservation, that this is the hardest thing I have ever done.

I think the real difference between this and everything I have done before is that, for this class, being smart wasn't enough. There was a lot of physical strength and endurance, which is not exactly my forte.

It was hot today - like 90 with 90% humidity.

However, it is done, and now I'm going to sleep for about a month.

If you are running an animal rescue effort, don't have silly adoption rules.

Link

Specifically:

3.A.ix prohibits letting cats outside. No consideration is made for those of us in the country w/ 5 acres of land (or more).

3.B lets them set up an appointment to inspect your house for as long as you have the pet. Privacy, anyone?

So, this is the last batch we will be fostering for this group.

More pictures

Thank you for sending me a notification that I will be getting an economic stimulus check this coming Friday. However, to be honest, notifying me Monday that I should expect to see something on Friday seems kind of silly, don't you think?