“Desert Bus” is a mini-game found in the Penn & Teller Sega CD video game (never released). The objective of the game is to drive a bus from Tucson to Vegas–in real time–at 45 MPH. No scenery. No other cars. Just a bus that drags to the right, so you can’t just tape down a button.

Why do I think I’m particularly qualified for Desert Bus? Because Ev and I just drove from Austin to Chicago in one-shot (no overnight stay). That’s 1150 miles in 18.5 hours (we left Austin at 5:30 AM and arrived in Chicago a little after midnight).

Amazingly, I don’t feel any more tired than I would if we split the trip up. Though I must say, after driving 15 hours you get a little sick of looking at Illinois cornfields (in the dark). My god, Illinois is a boring looking state! Nothing to see but fields.

Anyhow, we’ll be up here in Chicago for at least a week, probably two. While Evelyn will be able to have fun, I’ll be working. Oh well, gotta pay the bills.

The newest version of Make magazine has an interesting walk-thru of Google’s free 3D drawing application called SketchUp. I’ve been playing around with it a bit this evening (making a virtual workbench) and it’s pretty darn cool. I’m still working on my model, but here’s an example of what someone else did:

You can do similar things on larger scales (ex. full sized buildings), plus there are a lot of pre-built models and materials already out there. Anyone interested in dabbling with 3D models should check it out (unfortunately, it only runs on XP or OSX).

I saw this sticker on a box of chemistry supplies and thought of Dave and Graham, the hard-core Linux fans.

Evelyn has recently been working on her LED PIC-based clocks. See the below video for her kooky Sea Horse Clock:

One of her projects is to come up with the “ideal” alarm clock. So, I put this out to my readers: What features would you like to see in your ideal alarm clock? How would it wake you up? What do you hate about your existing alarm clock? Are you one of those people who can sleep through a blaring alarm? If so, what do you do? Any and all ideas are welcome.

My new hard drive has been completed and is being shipping as we speak. Since it’s quite large (5 MB), I had to charter a charter Pan American Airlines Stratocruiser to bring it down to Austin. Take a look at my new baby:

Isn’t it amazing how much can happen in 50 years? The drive pictured above holds 5 MB. No, not Gigabyte–Megabyte. It’s circa 1956.

Though, I do believe that more has happened in computer technology in the last 20 years than the last 50. The desktop PC did a lot to push things forward. I remember writing programs on 64 KB of RAM, and that was a lot. I dreamed of adding a 10 MB hard drive to my Atari 800 XL. I could hold everything I every owned on that! When CDs first came out I was amazed that you could fit 640 MB of content on one disk. How could you use up that space? Truely amazing.

Sorry I haven’t posted recently. It’s been pretty busy on the work-front. I have been trying to close out stuff at the conservation district. The original contract was scheduled to end on 5/15, so I was rushing to finish things up. Now it has been extended by a little bit, probably another 40 hours. At the same time I’m doing some consulting work for a company I used to work full-time for. Right now it looks like I’ll probably be in Chicago the last week of May (week of Memorial Day) and perhaps again in mid-late June.

My sister was asking about this recipe, so I figured if I was typing it up I might as well post it. This is a very tasty veggie recipe. It was originally published in the April 2002 Cuisine At Home magazine. I have all of their issues–they are one of my favorite cooking magazines–and really got me back into cooking interesting stuff.

1 cup brown lentils
1 cup yellow onion, chopped
1 T garlic, minced
1 cup ketchup
1/4 cup pur maple syrup
1 T prepared yellow mustard (ex. French’s)
1 T apple cider vinegar
1/8 tsp ground ginger
Tabasco to taste
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Sort through the lentils, picking out stones. Cover and cook lentils with 2 1/2 cups of water in a medium saucepan over medium heat until tender but not mushy, about 30 minutes. Drain lentils and set aside.
2. Saute onion in 1 T of oil in a saute pan over med-high heat until soft, about 8 minutes. Add garlic and saute for another minute.
3. Add ketchup, syrup, mustard, vinegar, ginger, Tabasco (optional), salt, and pepper. Simmer until thick and darker in color, about 10 minutes.
4. Stir in drained lentils and simmer 2-3 minutes, until warmed through.
5. Serve on buns, either plain or with pickles, green leaf lettuce, and sliced red onion circles.

Back in March I wrote up an article about an inexpensive dutch oven made by Chefmate. After about two months of hard use, I wanted to give you an update. I’ve encountered two minor issues so far:

First, it chipped on the inside lid, near the handle. I have no idea how this happened. My guess is that it was a manufacturing defect. It doesn’t affect how the pot works, but you should look yours over before purchasing, just to make sure. The outside is still fine, so I think the enameling is generally ok.

Second, and more annoying, is that it’s staining pretty heavily on the inside bottom and sides. I believe this was “user error” more than anything else, since I did a couple of big batches of frying in the pan, with the oil getting filled with particles. These little burnt particles stuck to the bottom and stained the pot. Since the insides are white, they show up clearly. On the bright side, this also doesn’t affect the overall function of the dutch oven.

Since I do quite a bit of stove-top frying, I was a disappointed that the pot was staining so badly. So, I quit using it for that kind of work. This sucks, because I love frying in thick cast-iron (much better heat retention and recovery).

Fortunately, while looking around at Target the other day, Evelyn spotted another model! It’s basically the exact same dutch oven, except no porcelain coating. It’s dark-black cast iron, “pre-coated”, and perfect for frying. Horray! As an added bonus, it’s cheaper, too (about $25). So, now I have my un-coated pot dedicated for frying, and my porcelain pot for cooking stews and soups and whatnot.

Since I’m talking about frying, let’s discuss a bit about “french fries”. I used to follow Julia Child’s “french” method of frying potatoes. First you fry them in cool (325) oil until very slightly browned and limp. Then you drain them for 1/2 hour. Then you fry them again in hot (375) oil. Obviously, this ends up getting messy and takes a long time. Recently, I’ve been using the microwave method and things turn out pretty well.

Basically, you slice up your potatoes, toss them with oil in a microwave-proof container, cover with plastic wrap, and cook for about 8-10 minutes. While the microwave is running, heat up your oil to 375-400. Once the microwave is done, and the oil is hot, *carefully* peel back the plastic wrap (there will be a LOT of steam–be careful) and fry the potatoes until a nice golden brown. You’ll probably have to do a couple of batches, depending on how much you are cooking up–don’t overcrowd the oil–it will cool down too much.

The microwave method works even better with “country fries” / “hashbrowns” / “skillet fries” (cubes of potatoes). You get wonderful dark and crispy outsides, and creamy fully cooked insides. It also cuts down the time it takes to make these breakfast treats (though, they are still time consuming, and are often left for weekend meals).

Why do the twice-frying or microwave cooking in the first place? Well, mainly because the outside of the potatoes (that touch the oil) cook/brown/burn a heck of a lot faster than the insides. So, you end up with nice dark outsides, but raw potato insides. This is especially true if you cut thick “steak fries”. The first fry / microwave cooks the insides nicely, so you get a cooked potato with a crispy outside. Just be careful not to overcook in the microwave, otherwise the potatoes will fall apart too much. You’ll get the feel of it after a couple of batches.

A couple more tips:

• Cornstarch is a great absorber of water. When frying, put about a teaspoon in your oil and your food will turn out crisper. I only do this when frying in a smaller pan (where I’m not going to re-use the oil), since it “dirties” the oil a lot more than plain potatoes will. When you get something crispy at your local Chinese joint (ex. sweet and sour chicken) that breading is cornstarch, not flour. I use cornstarch instead of flour in most of my frying coatings (ex. chicken fingers). I’m working on the “perfect” chicken finger coatings, but I still need to do more testing. I’ll post it once I’ve figured it out.
• If you re-use your oil, be sure to separate and mark it’s use. I try not to fry potatoes in oil that was used for chicken. The meat will give everything a meaty taste. More obviously, fish needs it’s own oil, but I usually don’t re-use that oil.
• A found a nice, cheap, and sturdy microwaveable container for my cut fries: It’s those hard-plastic containers that ground turkey come in. Look for those that have about 3 lbs of ground turkey, and are nitrogen packed. They are very sturdy,  last quite a while, and are perfect for holding a nice big batch of cut potatoes.

I was just checking the Chicago Tribune website and saw that several retailers have pulled the Magnetix toy from their shelves. A little background:

Over the last couple of days the Tribune has had a series of articles about these magnetic toys. Long story short, some 5 year old swallowed the magnets, they jammed up his insides, and he died. A sad story, I admit. However, here is what’s pissing me off: Do the articles blame the idiots who let a little kid play with tiny objects? No. They blame the big-bad goverment and the big-bad company for not warning us about how evil and dangerous and deadly and horrible magnets can be. If only there was a big warning sticker on the box, then little “Jimmy” would be alive today! Oh, the humanity!

Give me a break.

Frankly, if you are a parent and don’t know that (a) kids like picking up things, (b) kids like putting things in their mouths, and (c) kids can die from putting small things in their mouths, then you don’t deserve to be a parent. What kind of brainpower does it require to know that you don’t give a kid something they could swallow? Remember, we’re talking about a toy here. Something the parent buys and gives to their child. We’re not talking about the accidential things that happen.

This sort of thing just drives me up a wall. We seem to live in a world where any sort of personal responsibility has been tossed out the window. Here’s the simple fact: you fucked up, and you have to live with it. What is so hard to understand? Why do we, as a society, feel the need to blame everyone but yourself?

The Kansas.com site has some saddening arial photos of the Greensburg area. Take a look at what a tornado can do:

Greensburg Tornado Damage

When they said the whole town was wiped out, I was skeptical, but not after seeing those photos. The only things standing are the grain silos and some concrete block buildings. I learned to respect the safety of concrete homes during our time in Puerto Rico. These images re-affirm my requirement that any house I build be made of concrete, either poured or block. They have their downsides, but you never have to worry about their ability to take a beating.