Evelyn and I both enjoy pork chops. Thicker ones with bones are usually tastier, but a nice boneless loin cut into thin cutlets makes an easy to defrost and cook meal. The problem is that so much of today’s pork, especially the less-fatty loin, is tasteless. There’s little good porky flavor, and the meat ends up dry and tasteless.

There is an easy solution to this problem: Brining. Simply soak the meat in a salt-water solution for at least a 1/2 hour. The ratio is typically 1/4 cup of salt to 1 quart of water. While these simple salt-and-water brines are pretty good, sometimes I’m looking for a bigger flavor boost.

I recently came across this marinate / brine in Rosengarten’s “It’s All American Food” book. It’s a bit of a pain if you don’t have the spices on hand, but it results in very tasty flavored chops. He recommends four 3/4 inch center-cut pork loin rib chops, but I’ve had luck with thin little cutlets, too. (Just don’t overcook.)

• 4 cups cold water
• 4 TB salt
• 2 TB sugar
• 10 whole cloves
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 1/4 tsp celery seeds
• 1/2 orange (squeezed, with skin)

Just combine the above in a bowl, add the pork chops, and let them marinate for about an hour in the refrigerator. (You can use 1/4 prepared orange juice if you don’t have a fresh orange available.) Then drain the chops, shake in a flour/salt/pepper mixture, and fry in some shortening (Crisco works well).

I’m not sure what it is, but that clove/bay/oregano/celery mixture really brings out some interesting flavors in the meat. Give it a try sometime. It’s a good use for the celery seeds and cloves you never know what to do with.

As a child, I loved to make things. I was very fortunate to have a Dad who kept a well supplied work bench, and tons of scrap (and not-so-scrap) wood around. The result was a bevy of go-carts, tree houses, porches for tree houses, and so forth.

As I got older, I got more into computers and electricity (not quite electronics, more switches and lights). Many an LED got fried (who knew of current resistors?) and a Christmas light set got cut apart, all for the purpose of making “do not disturb” lights and flashing red eyes for the World Champion 1985 Chicago Bears t-shirt.

There are a lot of kids out there today who want to get into “making things”. Whether it’s a toy made out of wood, or an electronic gadget. The trouble is that many of them have parents who don’t know where to start, or don’t have the resources (financial or otherwise). For example, I met a mother and son at the Austin Maker Faire. The boy was very into making things, but didn’t have a role model to help him. His mom didn’t know where to start exactly, but–to her great credit–she knew that a place like the Maker Faire would be good for him.

So, this Christmas season, give a moments thought to the young Makers out there. Those who don’t have access to the tools or the parts or the experience. Consider giving an up-and-coming Edison an electronics tool kit, as you can find at the Make Store:

The have put together a pretty nice starter set. Though, I’d recommend more: Consider giving the young Tesla a nice selection of parts. Standard values of resistors and capacitors. A bunch of LEDs, some switches, some speakers, a couple of breadboards, and some 555′s for good measure. It only takes about $50 of parts to put together a really excellent starter set. 

An Offer: If you are aware of any up-and-coming electronics genius who is lacking in tools or parts, please let me know. You know my hard-ass criteria: They must come from a family who clearly can not afford it, with a child who clearly has a desire, and the support, to pursue their hobby. Some lucky kids may just get an extra something in their Christmas stocking.

A quick update from Evelyn:

Last night the ship passed though the equator and King Neptune appeared, presenting everyone with a certificate for the crossing. It doesn’t seem as though they needed to go through a “rite of passage”, which is unfortunate.

Today they are visiting the islands of Isabela and Fernandina, checking out sea turtles, sea lions, penguins, and other birds. In the afternoon they will be at Espinoza Point, touring the Pahoe-hoe lava flows, Marina Iguana, and the Galapagos Flightless Cormorants.

They’ve been very busy, running around everywhere. Evelyn has been doing more hiking than snorkeling because her legs have been cramping up (getting into the wetsuit). More hiking means more photos, of course. I think she’s up to 3000. That means that one of the 8 GB CF cards is filled.

Over the past decade or so, Amateur (Ham) Radio has been taking a beating. With the advent of new technologies (cell phones, instant messaging, VOIP), the mystique of being able to talk to someone a world away has evaporated. Plus, a lot of people who would have gotten into radio & electronics instead went to the personal computer. You could do a lot more with a computer, and the Internet seemed to make Ham Radio a dying hobby.

Luckily, there has been a renaissance in electronics. Many people are getting back into hobby electronics as a result of things like cheap, powerful, microcontrollers being readily available. Short range communications devices (like the ZigBee) can be easily, and cheaply, added to projects. Whereas building complicated projects was tedious, using many individual components, a hobbyist today can put together a complicated device in a weekend.

Unfortunately, I don’t see the same excitement in Ham Radio. Sure, you have new digital communications, but how do you get kids interested in that? “Why don’t you just use the internet?” is a phase I hear. And, in fact, some new modes of Ham Radio dispense with the radio part altogether! (Transmitting the bulk of the conversation over the IP network, with endpoints being traditional transmitter/receiver stations.)

What Ham Radio needs is a BIG PROJECT. Something that many can get involved with. Something with a real challenge. Something that will put the hobby back on the map. To that end, I say: Google Lunar X Prize.

I’ve talked, and ranted, about this prize before: The idea is to land a rover on the moon, move about, and transmit video back to earth. A daunting task, and one that will (likely) only be won by huge university or richie-rich teams. (Nothing against them, but come on–true innovation comes from the garages of the world.)

Now, the recently opened Allen Telescope Array has generously offered free down-link communication services for any competitor. (The ATA was funded, in large part, by Paul Allen–co-founder of Microsoft. It is a large radio telescope array designed for SETI [and other] radio research. [A huge lost opportunity for Arecibo, which could be fully funded by Allen's pocket change.])

I think it’s very cool that the ATA is being used for this, but I also believe it kinda defeats the purpose of the X Prize. After all, isn’t small scale, “hobbyist”-type innovation being sought out? Also, I see a big problem with this site being used for down-link–it is only one site, and it’s sitting in the California desert. Not exactly world-wide coverage (remember, folks, the earth rotates).

I see a couple of issues here:

• There needs to be world-wide base-station coverage, allowing for communications regardless of the moon’s position.
• The base stations need to be dirt-cheap. A expensive NASA setup is not an option.
• The stations can not be run by a government agency. The prize dictates private individuals/companies.
• The communications must be handled by people experienced in long distance radio work, often under difficult conditions.
• The frequencies used must be available for civilian use, and not overly restricted by governments (world-wide).
• A ground-up setup would be too costly and time consuming. Need to use time-tested technologies.

So, what meets these requirements? Ham radio.

• There are licensed Amateur Radio operators around the world.
• Base stations use mostly off-the-self, of home-brewed equipment. Cheap is good, in Ham Radio!
• The stations are run by individuals, not governments.
• Amateur Radio operators are extremely experienced in tough, long distance, communications.
• There are a number of high frequency bands available. For example, the 23 cm band (1.2 Ghz)–which has been used by Hams for “moon bounce” since the 1960s!
• The Hams around the world already have stations set up and running, and have full-time broadband Internet connections.

(JN69QT’s 23cm Antenna — Czech Republic) 

So there you go. A BIG PROJECT that Amateur Radio enthusiasts can sink their teeth into. Something with a real challenge, but based on decades of experience. Something that will, I am sure, get the next generation of Hams into the hobby. You can’t talk to the moon over the Internet!

Evelyn and Deb have arrived safely in the Galapagos. They are on the cruise ship, floating around the islands, and taking a ton of photos. Debbie, a big birder, is going pretty crazy out there. Evelyn is chatting with the locals, being her usual friendly self.

On Sunday they visited Killer Rock (or something) and saw Boobies “making love”. Or “fucking” as Evelyn said. She took photos, of course.

 (The above photo is from the Galapagos Conservancy; not Evelyn.)

Sounds like they are having a lot of fun, which is cool.

How did I get the update? Why Google Talk, of course! The cruise ship has internet access. It’s expensive, but actually faster than the connection she had at Quito! (Probably because it’s a Hughes Satellite, with a downlink in the U.S.)

A note from Evelyn:

We joined the Celebrity group and toured pretty much the same places we did yesterday (drive by).
 
We toured the Old town where we walked and took lots of photos.  We went to the only church in Quito that was built with gold trimmings everywhere.  They didn’t allow photos inside but the was a little store inside where I bought a book on this church ” The Church of the Soiety of Jesus in Quito”.
 
On our way to the church, both Debbie and I were approached by the natives and boy did they sell… Mother with children, children, the whole family selling. It was funny.  
 
People everywhere, the history in Quito is very rich and the people are very friendly but also in dire need of money to support their family.  This seems to be the theme here.
 
Afterward we went to the middle of the world the Ecuador, except this is the tourist version not the one we really went to…. so funny.
 
Well, time to get dressed and ready for the evening adventure. Later tonight, pack things up and get ready for the Galapalos.
 

Evelyn and Debbie spent the day touring around Quito in Equador. They visited a huge volcano, stood at the equator, and drove about. A pretty full day (9 to 4). They were able to get more personalized service because they arrived a day before the rest of the group. It sounds like they are having a lot of fun. Evelyn has already taken 350 photos, let’s up her two 8 GB memory cards hold out!

Tomorrow, the rest of the group arrives, and they do the usual tourist stuff (churches, famous buildings, etc). On Sunday they fly out the the Galapagos, at which point I’ll probably not be able to chat with Ev over G-Talk.

Evelyn and Deb made it safe and sound last night. I tracked their flight (using the very handy FlightView), so I know they landed safely. Got an e-mail when they arrived at the hotel:

Deb and I just got into Quito Ecuador…. wow, the trip was pleasant.
We met a young girl named Isabela she gave us the lowdown on
Quito the city.  She said it’s like Chicago actually she was flying from
Chicago.  Wild.  So that helped quite a bit.
 
I’m glad we ate at the airport, but we’re so hungry now that we’re going
to have order room service.  It’s 11pm your time 12am Ecuador.
We’re both quite tired.  We saw the 5th Harry Potter movie so that
help pass the time aside from the small chats.

They will be in Quito today and tomorrow, taking a flight to the Galapagos on Sunday.

Earlier today I was reading an article on the BBC News site about how demand for bandwidth could result in the Internet “running out of capacity.” Here’s a quote:

US analyst firm Nemertes Research predicted a drastic slowdown as the network struggles to cope with the amount of data being carried on it.  Such gridlock would drastically affect how people use the web and could mean the next Google or YouTube simply doesn’t get off the ground, it said. For users, the slowdown could see a return to the bad old days of dial-up, the report predicts.

But wait! It gets worse!

“It may take more than one attempt to confirm an online purchase or it may take longer to download the latest video from YouTube,” the report cited.

What a fucking load of horseshit!

First off, let me put forth a dream: I dream that Nemertes Research goes out of business before their Doom & Gloom date of 2010. In fact, I’ll go one step further: I PREDICT that they will be out of business by 2010.

These types of “studies” always annoy the shit out of me. You know why? Because their predictions are based on the idea that we, as a society, do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for the next two years. Yes, we just sit on our hands and watch the Internet spiral away.  As our YouTube and Google gets slower and slower, we just say “oh, well!” and let it fall apart. Talk about a depressing way of looking at life. Let’s just give up and wait for the apocalypse!

Maybe, instead of writing irritating “studies”, these bozos should go and do someting. Quit your god-dammed bitching and make something happen!

Thoughts for the Doom & Gloom crowd:

• In December 1941 the United States entered WWII (officially). By August 1945 we had the Atomic Bomb and had defeated Germany, Japan, and Italy.
• In September 1962 President Kennedy made his famous “We choose to go to the moon” speech. By July 20, 1969, we had landed a man on the moon.
• In 1992 Seagate first marketed a 2.1 GB hard drive. In 2007 you can get a 500 GB drive for about $120. In case you are counting, that’s about 238 times more capacity.
• In the mid-90s Evelyn had a kick-ass computer, running at 66 Mhz. My tiny 12″ laptop now runs at 2,200 Mhz–and has two processor cores.

On the drive back from Houston, I was thinking about where Evelyn and I have been for Thanksgiving over the past couple years. Let’s see:

• 2007 : En route to the Galapagos
• 2006 : In Florida with Chasen & Nancy
• 2005 : In Puerto Rico, with TJ Ranch

My goodness, how time flies! Pretty amazing.

As for me, I’m going to cook up some home-fries and drink the rest of a bottle of wine. That’s living!