notes from the frontier of boredom

delayed gratification

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 21:34:00 +0000

A long time ago I posted about a shotgun, four and a half years ago. I had just started shooting trap. I have been in lust with it ever since. On 1/1/10 I bought it. Here's the original post. Now if only the temp would come up far enough that I could convince anybody to go shooting with me I'd try it out.

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:44:00 +0000

Bwahahah! Posting issues resolved. Not that I expect I will be an exciting blogger. I do have some news though.

For International Talk Like A Pirate Day Heidi designed a new cable pattern for a hat. It's based on the carrick bend. It's over at www.knitlikeapirate.com I've finished two of them now. One a test knit, another was so we could photograph certain construction phases.

hrm.. been a long time

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:20:00 +0000

It's been a chaotic time here on the frontier of boredom. Work is good. The house is good. The car has a new suspension installed by George and me. Ed got very old very fast, and was in a lot of pain. That lead to the decision to put Ed to sleep. We're thinking about new dogs but haven't made a decision yet. Meanwhile I've worn through the soles of three pairs of boots. Granted some of them were a couple years old, but still. It just seems rediculous that I should have to go buy new boots when the uppers are ok. But apparently we've become the sort of society where unless I want to wear work boots or logger boots or pumps as a woman I can't have resoleable shoes. At least not that I can try on locally, which is an issue given my orthotics.

I guess now you all know why I haven't been blogging much. My life is not full of excitement.

Desktop Seige Engine Contest

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:58:00 +0000

Aka Easter Egg Chuck 2009. We had an Easter Egg Chuck in 2007. It was awesome. This time we're doing it again but smaller. I don't have exact dates for the contest but I'm guessing right around Easter!

The Rules

Torsion, Gravity, Elastic powered throwers only.
No pneumatics or chemical launchers.
Must fit in a 5" x 5" x 5" cube. (throwing arms may extend beyond the box)
No throwing arms over 12" long.

Devices cannot require contact outside the 5x5x5 cube when cocked, and must be freestanding in their ready to fire position. Throwing arms may extend outside this cube but must not be in contact with anything outside the cube. (AKA no slingshots or wrist rockets)

Build out of whatever makes you comfortable. Lego, Mechano/Erector sets, wood, carbon fiber, aluminum.

We will be throwing Plain Pastel Easter M&Ms.

There will be separate judging classes for torsion devices, and for gravity devices.

Put questions in the comments and I'll answer them in the post.
If you say live in California but participated last time and want to play again, you should mail in an entry, yes you Steve. Or you know anybody else who wants to mail one in. We will find a designated operator for your device.

Rules Clarifications

Cavorter asks "Is there a limit on methods of winding torsion engines? For instance, does it have to be hand cranked or can it be motor assisted"

Powered methods of winding/setting a torsion device are fine. If you want to use a mini winch to cock the device, or a drill to tighten your tension bundle go for it. Devices which use the motor to throw the projectile are out however.
Chilly asks "Can I enter more than one device?"

Sure, you can either in the same or different classes. I am planning on building two myself.
Chilly asks " And do we need a rule that the machine, when cocked and set to fire, doesn't need to be held in place artificially? (i.e. - a wrist rocket with the handle cut down to less than 5" would be the automaticat winner in this contest)"

Uh.. yeah we need a rule to fix that, because what fun would that be. Devices cannot require contact outside the 5x5x5 cube when cocked, and must be freestanding in their ready to fire position. Throwing arms may extend outside this cube but must not be in contact with anything outside the cube. (AKA no slingshots or wrist rockets)

Why White Balance Matters

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 03:11:00 +0000

In 2007 when I got my Digital SLR I took the free classes offered by National Camera where I got it. I learned many fine things. Maybe not as much as the people who hadn't read their manual before they got there, or the people who hadn't had any structured camera instruction. One of the coolest things I learned was a strictly digital related skill White Balance. First off what is white balance? Wikipedia has a lot to say here But for those who don't want to go read all that, as I understand it digital camera takes a bunch of optical data and collects it on a sensor. If you're not shooting in RAW mode and editing your pictures in Photoshop or some tool like that, you're shooting in JPEG mode and it has to set values for the data. To set those values it makes some assumptions about what the world looks like, that there should be so much dark, so much light. Essentially that the world is a uniform 18% grey color.

Most cameras, even little pocket ones have a few stock settings, AWB or Auto, Florescent, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten, Flash, and Custom. AWB or Auto is where most default to, and many people never change it. It does a fair job. The others are mostly related to the sorts of light you are under. Florescent fixes the green skin tones that appear in pictures of very fair people in office and the like.

Custom is really the way to go if you have the few seconds to do it. It's easy. You do need something that is that mysterious 18% grey, or well any uniform light or medium grey, will work. I have used the inside liner of my camera bag. I have a lens cloth that happens to be an ok grey card. Serious photographers will tell you that a card is better, but this fits in my pocket and works ok. Cards are allegedly be better because of more uniform flat reflective surface. A sheet of paper will also work but might end up with slightly overexposed pictures.

So how do I use this? Well first I notice that Auto is failing me. See the golden hue of my living room. It's not realy this orangey golden. Also frequently it's tidier than this, but that isn't really relevent to the issue at hand.

Then I get out my grey cloth and I take a picture of it. It should be flat not all wrinkly but it doesn't seem to matter a ton in indoor light. You will notice this doesn't look too grey either, it's sort of a goldeny weird grey caused by the lights in my basement. Now the steps here vary but on my Canon Rebel XT I open up the White Balance settings. I then change to Custom. Then I go back up to the menu and choose the Custom WB option and it then shows me images, starting with the most recent one taken and gives me an option to select an image to white balance against. So I pick that one of my grey cloth.

Then I take the same picture again. Notice the more natural coloration. One last thought be sure and check your white balance as soon as you start taking pictures, especially if you use a custom white balances. Because the white balance you shot in your basement, or in your lightbox, or at the park, may be radically wrong in the other locations, but it will keep trying to use the last one you set.

Maybe tomorrow I'll do some white balance photos, in the great outdoors with all the snow. It's stunning what a difference it makes.

Making Bacon

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:58:00 +0000

I borrowed a book Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn, from Lauren. She brought it over the day we made sausage. It's available at Kitchen Window here in town for those who want it or presumably all over the internet for the rest of you.

I became obsessed with all the amazingly lovely sounding sausages and things in the book. So I read it cover to cover and decided to start trying things in order. Lauren was right with me on this plan.

So we started making bacon a couple weeks ago. First I ordered some Pink Salt (aka nitrates) off the internet. Then I set, my minion, Kate to finding a local source for pork bellies, which apparently the meat people call side pork. After calling everywhere she found Finer Meats on Nicollet when asked if they had side pork the reply came "Of course, we're Finer Meats!" Other great attributes of Finer Meats for pork belly includes no minimum purchase and ready availability and a great reputation as a good meat place in Minneapolis. They got us a 10lb slab in about three days. We were all excited but put the curing off a couple days so that it wouldn't need to come out of the cure and be smoked when I was unavailable. In this time we learned that the downstairs fridge at Lauren's place is broken. Sad, lost, 10lbs of side pork.

Finer Meats came through again, just a few days later, I always call and check, but mostly they say they have it or will have it in a day or two. This time it was 9.8lbs with the skin on. Lauren cut the meat into thirds while I went and found an old earring to use in the photographs just to twit a friend of a friend in California. That's why our pork belly has a nipple ring. It was taken off immediately after photography completed and is not actually involved in making bacon.

We then used the basic cure as listed in the the book to cure 1/3 of the belly. We made a sweet cure insprired by their sweet cure using maple syrup and some other spices (which we noted but I don't have the notes right now). And a savory cure with different spices and pepper. All three sections were packed into food saver bags and left to cure. They have now been down for five of the seven to possibly 10 days they need to fully cure. They are firming up nicely. This is apparently part of the process and what the salt/nitrates do to them. We hope to pull them on Friday and smoke them then.

The folks at Finer Meats seemed pretty excited when Lauren talked to them and said they would slice the bacon for us on their big meat slicer if we brought it back in! So I suspect we'll try slicing on our own and possibly use them if it turns out to be really challenging. Complete pictures are available here.

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 16:28:00 +0000

I suppose quarterly would be faster than my current update cycle. At least I didn't go half the year. I even missed my traditional Halloween post about how many kids we got. 56, for those keeping track.

Trap, well we finished out the season in dead last. I squeaked a victory over Erik for team high gun. I think it was like eight raw points over a possible 525 over the season. So just over 1% better.

We're not shooting the official fall league. The gunclub raise the prices too high to make us want to shoot league rounds. So we're shooting practice rounds since most of us are members with punch cards. Odie's keeping score. He's got some sort of wack handicapping system based on bowlling and the usual trap system, to try and make it less of a foregone conclusion who's going to be High Gun.

Knitting wise, well I knit a bunch of slippers out of bulky Lopi and now I can't get them to shrink quite far enough. So I'm currently a titch thwarted. It looks like at least one pair can be worn by an intended recipient, but not the pair I had intended for her. Oh well I know lots of people with many sizes of feet.

I'll be going to Seattle later in the month to be helpful for Heidi who is having surgery.

my perfect saturday

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:46:00 +0000

It all started when I got let out of work early on Friday. After a week that had been stressful and amazingly challenging, upgrading the backup software for the university. Then I went and hit two grocery stores looking for things for a friend's party. Ok that part wasn't as fun. I came home and had a lovely dinner of little bits of fancy cheeses and cured meets, and fresh vegetables.

I then helped Lauren work on her party prep in our kitchen, cause the place she is renting has a not so great kitchen. Very late in the evening we went to the house where the party is being held, as I type this even. It's a baby shower for someone I hardly know so I'm not there, which makes me just about as pleased as can be. But we get there and unload all the food into the fridges and freezers there, and then I helped Jon set up the screen tent in the back yard.

then home and to bed, where I slept late. Then I got up and went out to goodwill and st. vincent de paul to find a punch bowl for the aforementioned baby shower, which I delivered when I delivered Lauren to the party. Then I hit Mills Fleet Farm on the way home and dug through their tralier parts department until I found what I was looking for. I now have a 5 wire to 4 wire converter installed on my car so when I go fetch my boat tomorrow I won't blow fuses if I happen to hit the turn signal and the break at the same time! I also got a can of TRI-FLOW. It was recoomeneded to my by Rebecca my locksmith friend. She's right, it is a ton better than WD-40. I then proceded to lubricate every lock I could find, including the ones on my car, and Lauren's car and the ones on the house. Also the seat adusters on both of our cars as well.

Now I have ordred pizza and am sitting downstairs getting ready to watch the season finale's for all the shows I like.

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:49:00 +0000

quick update:

I'm on hold waiting for an escalated engieer. Apparently when you open a bunch of tickets in a single week while upgrading they eventually figure out you don't want to talk to just any body.

My upgrade is going pretty well, save the bit where the tech on Tuesday uninstalled the app for me. Or um.. you know another several wacked out issues.

This music track sucks. I like the east asian hold music better, when you're on hold for China you get full classical tracks.

Hopefully by quitting time today my head will be above water again. Speaking of above water AnimeIowa's hotel is currently still above water. We'll see what happens by Tuesday morning. There are advantages to having a co-chair who is a hydrologist that studies flood control.

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:46:00 +0000

Yesterday we found GIANT TICK on Mort. It was HUGE, and full, like a grape almost. Well a grape is too big, like a raisn you dropped in the water for a while. Rasins always seem to be made of littler grapes.

Today DeNae cut the grass, after I brought home motor oil. My mower seems to be eating oil a bit. It doesn't blow smoke or anything (well unless it's totally out of oil) but there it does consume some. So maybe twice a season we have to top it off. I suppose this means I should start saving for a new mower.

I need to go pick up my orthotics tomorrow. Apparently I have flat feet. Who knew? But apparently this is why my feet hurt every morning when I get up. I would have thought since you can still tuck a hot wheel car under my arch and not touch my foot I didn't have flat feet. I am apparently wrong. We'll see how that goes.

Things to blog about in the future

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:43:00 +0000

Since I know you all miss me... but today I am full of more good ideas than I can write, and someday I might not be.

NB6 upgrade -- how the upgrade went, and why it was awesome, and how much good support and good docs make a difference to complex projects
Symantec NetBackup Support -- they kick ass
My dream document -- in regards to upgrade instructions (what Heidi calls subscription documentation)
Evolution of the Trap Team
my quest for a new TV
making sausage
making bacon
waffle off

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Thu, 15 May 2008 19:49:00 +0000

Well I shot trap Tuesday night, and shot a pair of 23s. The team is really starting to come together. We've got some good shooters, and some new shooters. We ended up in B division again. This is totally not where some of our team belongs, others of us probably. Next year, maybe two teams.

Work is plodding along it's time for summer installation fun.

I have new windows coming, 5 weeks from Monday so um.. The week of June 16 I should hear something about scheduling the installation.

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 04:55:00 +0000

Well trap season started up again tonight. I'm capitan of our team, we're called The Source in hopes that the local gaming store will come through on the sponsorship deal. If they don't well then we'll just deal and be goofily named. We have some returning cast and some new shooters. Rebecca and Dave and Shaun are new. Back again we have myself and Erik of course, and Tony, Sigrid, Rob, Eric, and Deanna.

Also on the new list, is a new barrel on my shotgun. Dad got me a 28" barrel and so I swapped it out for my 24". It swings very much nicer now. Like a real trap gun. Quite pleasing.

Tonight I did something dumb. I shot AWESOME. Durring the handicapping phase. Oh well.. I guess that means I need an awesome season. I hit 20 and 21. Oh well. I am hoping we end up in the bottom division again as we have some new shooters with scores in the single digits. Not that it matters deeply to us if we win or lose, but it's nice to feel sort of competitive.

For those worried about Mort after my last post, getting his pain under control has done tons for him. He's back to his old self, he stole the leftover steak I was prepping for dinner the other night.

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:14:00 +0000

Ok.. so I'm slack it's been over a month and a half since I posted anything at all, and months since anything of with content. too bad for the three of you out there who check.

It's the time of year where we're wrangling up a trap team. Maybe even two trap teams. It's hard to tell. We'll see how many people we end up with. Currently the count is like 11 or 12 which is too many for one team.

Mort is getting to be sort of old and crotchety. He isn't wanting to eat. He seems like he's in pain a lot of the time. I am starting to get worried about him. I was hoping he'd perk up with spring. It doesn't seem to be happening. His lumps are large, and solid feeling. I fear we may be nearing the end.

I'm shopping for replacement windows for the house. If you know of a twin cities local schuco installer that isn't the jerks at Renaissance Exteriors I'd be happy to hear about it. They were all about the high pressure sign now or else, on this purchase of siding and windows NOW! The guy wouldn't leave til I signed. I eventually had to threaten to call the cops to get him to clear out. I won't speak to them again. Tonight Pella comes by, and tomorrow Andersen.

Then Heidi comes to visit!

I am thinking we'll rip out the bathroom downstairs this weekend. I don't know what's going in there instead yet, but I figure that will force my hand in the deciding front.

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:05:00 +0000

Last night Heidi and I watched Jet Li and Morgan Freeman in Unleashed. If you haven't seen it don't bother. I mean how can this go wrong I like Morgan Freeman in most things and Jet Li in pretty much every movie I've seen him in. Well this wasn't an action film and it wasn't a drama, it was an unfortunate mashup, that demanded far more acting skill and a far better script than it had. Insipid, and dull.

Toffee

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:50:00 +0000

1/2c butter
3/4c brown sugar

melt together boil stirring CONSTANTLY 7 minutes.

pour over nuts (or not)
when slightly cooled but still very hot pour on 1/2 bag chocolate chips (or other chocolate)
when chocolate melted (it melts faster if you put a jelly roll pan over it) spread evenly

Pecan Brittle

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 23:57:00 +0000

2 cups sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup water
2 cups fresh pecans
1/2 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. butter
2 tsp. baking soda

Heat and stir sugar, syrup and water in a heavy 3-quart saucepan until the sugar dissolves. Add salt. Cook over medium heat to soft ball stage (234 degrees). Add pecans at 250 degrees. Cook to hard crack stage (290 degrees), stirring often. Remove from heat.

Quickly, stir in butter and soda. Beat to a froth for a few seconds. Pour at once onto 2 well-buttered 15-1/2x10-1/2x1-inch pans, spreading with spatula. If desired, cool slightly and pull with forks to stretch thin. Break up when cold.

Yield: About 1-1/2 pounds of peanut brittle.

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 02:11:00 +0000

I'm just in from the garage. I haven't had dinner yet tonight. I decided on my way home, when it became clear traffic was too miserable for me to get the cat to the vet on time I was going to build the swifts everyone had been nagging me about. So, while I need to go buy some 1x2 or 2x3 or 1x4 or something to rip down to make the pegs I'm nearly done. Also I guess I need to chop some more half inch dowel rods in half. I just didn't have anymore.

I made four of them tonight between 6pm and 8pm. That's half an hour a piece. Pretty good considering the first thing I had to do was dismantle a trebuchet. Yep. Twisty met her end. The throwing arm is still intact as there wasn't enough 1x2 in it to bother cutting apart to make swift pegs. It's amazing how much bigger my garage seems with only one trebuchet. Maybe I'll see about getting George, Kate's trebuchet, back to her. My garage would be positively enormous then.

I had a great time puttering in the garage. I had the drill press running, and the table saw, and the sliding compound miter saw too. First I ripped a warped 1x6 in half. Then I cut it into a bunch of 15" lengths on the miter saw. I had 10 of them, which would have been five swifts. But I figured for some loss due to the big knots and the fact at least one knot was cracked. I clamped them all together on edge and got them as flat and square as possible with a hammer. Then I set my table saw blade up to half their thickness and proceded to cut all 10 notches at once.

Back to the miter saw where I cut the slopes on the shoulders that are like 90% aesthetic, but do help with winding smaller skeins some. That was sneakily done by setting the angle of the blade at 10% off square and clamping a bit of 2x4 to the saw's table to act as a jig. All the slopes came off in quick order and made a bunch of little door stops for roomparties of the future!

Then I had to make the hubs. 2x4 first cut into squares then octagons. I like drilling the holes for the arms on the diagonal sides.. I've had fewer split that way. It takes a little extra time but I think it's worth it.

Then over to the drill press, where I drilled half inch holes in the edges of the hubs And a 3/16" hole for the axel. Also the holes in the bases for the axles. Pencil sharpener to taper the ends of the 3/16" dowels, sand them down a tiny bit on the hub end for freer spinning. Tap the bits together and I was done.

Huh.. I wonder if I should make an instructable out of this for www.instructables.com

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 04:42:00 +0000

Today is banner day. I finished Toad's mittens. I finished the Llama I was knitting. I cast on a new secret project.

Also I shot trap... Got a 20. Then we tried skeet! I got 11. It was pretty cool. I'd like to try it again in the daylight. The black bottoms of the clays were hard to see against the black sky.

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 03:10:00 +0000

I haven't been blogging much. I also haven't been knitting much. Then recently I just got all excited and have been knitting like a fiend. In the past week I've produced a a llama and a mitten and a half. Odds are the mitten will be all done tonight, certainly tomorrow. Then a secret christmas knitting project. Maybe I'll post a picture of the yarn as a teaser.

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 01:30:00 +0000

Well we're plodding along. I am way ahead in the books. Some of the team is done. The rest of us could finish in the next week or two. I didn't shoot any in the book last week. I shot one round of practice with two shotguns.. neither mine. I hit 10. Which sucks.. but it was just practice to fill out a squad.

Scores are posted through week three. We have 4 pts. Which means we won two weeks and lost one one week. That seems ok.

Salted Carmels

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 01:22:00 +0000

These are the caramels I made for Heidi tonight. Recorded here so I can try them again.

1 cup butter salted
2 1/4 cups brown sugar
1 tablespoon kosher salt (or 2tsp regular salt)
1/3 cup light corn suryp
2/3 cup dark corn suryp
1 14oz can of sweetened condensed milk

3qt saucepan

melt the butter in a 3qt sauce pan over medium heat
stir in brown sugar and salt stir until mostly melted down
add corn suryp stirring constantly until smooth.
slowly add milk stiring all the while.

Stir continuously until the firm ball stage (which I call 250 and the rest of the world calls somewhere between 245 and 248) and no my thermometer isn't wrong. I just like carmels that if you cut will stand up....but not the filling rippers of hard ball at 260.

These are salty and sweet, and early testing indicates addictive

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 19:06:00 +0000

http://www.entropyhouse.com/penwiper/who/extermaknit.html knit a dalek!
http://www.entropyhouse.com/penwiper/who/knittardis.html knit a tardis!

I know a kid who needs these.

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 06:06:00 +0000

Lest you all think I died.....

Hmm.. trap last week was ok. I hit 21 and 18 I think. The 18 was with Tony's gun as Sig was using mine. Hmm... what else... In the past week I've knit most of a llama. And today I made three pairs of flannel PJ pants; two in green plaid, and one in horrible geometric fabric. I was tempted to make one green plaid pair and two pairs that were parti-colored. Half horrible half plaid. I didn't though. I was out-voted.

Also I finished the keychain I've been obsessing over knotting. Tomorrow I'll try taking pictures of all these things and posting them.

noreply@blogger.com (LT) — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 03:42:00 +0000

Oh wait.. I forgot to explain why the bees were important to today! Like true heroes of the revolution Odie and Tony came over after trap shooting and I went outside with a flashlight and showed them where the bee hive is. Then they sprayed it full of bee killer stuff. Thursday Odie is going to come over and dig up the hive and put it in the trash. He's such a good man.