Bocce ball Christmas party and all the Bell's Two Hearted Ale I can drink!

I have a big pot of beef stew on the stove to keep me and the house warm through the snow storm today.

First snow of the season.

Last week Meijer had a great deal on pork short ribs so I got 8.5 pounds to smoke. Last night I mixed up the following rub and applied it so it could sit overnight:

3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup paprika
1/4 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup garlic powder
2 tablespoons ground black pepper
2 tablespoons ground ginger powder
2 tablespoons onion powder
2 teaspoons rosemary powder

I didn't have any brown sugar so I just used all white sugar.

I am getting ready to start the smoker. I was up and ready to go at 7:30 am, but the outside temperature was about 31 degrees and thought I might have a problem keeping the temperature up, so I decided to wait until it warmed up a bit. I took the ribs out of the fridge to bring up to room temp.

After that I plan on doing various chores while I babysit the ribs which include some more yard work and laundry.

I have the A Christmas Story DVD on for background ambience.

I got a whole-house humidifier when I got my new furnace. The humidifier has an outside temperature probe and sets the inside humidity based on the outside temperature.

Supposedly this will prevent the condensation that occurs and can cause mold and drywall damage when you forget to set the correct humidity level manually.

These are the levels that are programmed into the unit:

Outside Temp/Inside Humidity
40° / 45%
30° / 40%
20° / 35%
10° / 30%
0° / 25%
-10° / 20%
-20° / 15%

I can't wait until we start getting some consistent below-freezing temperatures to see how the system performs.

Going on the first pheasant hunt of the season tomorrow morning. I think whatever I bring home tomorrow I'll toss into the smoker with the ribs I am going to smoke on Sunday.

My awesome chopped pork sandwich I had for dinner tonight. I reheated it in a foil pouch in the toaster oven at 325 degrees for 15 minutes. Perfect.

The turkey has just a couple more degrees to go. I haven't checked the poem's temperature yet.

This is what I'm starting out with.

I bought a smoker last night and put it together. This morning I am seasoning the inside and then I will smoke a turkey breast and a pork shoulder.

New furnace. The electronic air cleaner is the box with the blue lights between the furnace and the cold air return.

I got a new furnace and air conditioner installed yesterday and I'm excited about it for a number of reasons.

1. The furnace is 95% efficient. My old furnace was probably about 55% efficient, so I'm looking forward to lower gas bills.

2. It has a humidifier. In the past if I did not keep a humidifier running in my bedroom I would be miserable with a burning nose and really dry itchy skin, but it got to be a pain by the end of each heating season filling it up with water each night and cleaning it every few weeks. Plus the rest of the house wasn't properly humidified. The new humidifier even has an outside temperature and humidity probe so it can calculate exactly how much to humidify the inside air.

3. I opted for a whole-house electronic air cleaner. Their marketing material says it is 8 times better than the best HEPA room filters, and a lot of the on-line reviews say they noticed big differences in dust and pet hair after a few weeks as well as big improvements in allergy symptoms. The furnace is has two heating stages and a variable speed fan. The fan has a very efficient DC motor and you are supposed to leave it running continuously. Running it for one year would cost between $10 and $30 in electricity. The main benefit of this is it will equalize temperatures throughout the house. In the summer my upstairs was many degrees warmer than my downstairs. I would put a big fan at the base of my steps and blow cold air up the stairs at night. That should be a thing of the past. Another benefit is that the air cleaner we be continually cleaning the air.

The installers were really good about putting down drop cloths on the path from the front door to the basement door, but the tile floor in between still got some mud on it. I pulled out my Hoover Floormate and in under 10 minutes the floor was perfectly clean again. I love that thing. Huge thanks to Tim and Lisa again for turning me on to that a year or two ago. I'd replace it again in an instant.

There was an article in this week's Chicago Tribune that had a recipe for making homemade butter. It intrigued me so I gave it a try. This picture shows it this morning immediately after I separated it from the buttermilk. I still have to chill it and then under running water knead out any remaining buttermilk. I think I will salt half of it, and then portion it out in one or two ounce portions and freeze most of it.

It's been forever since I've had liver and onions, and I happened to spot liver when I was grocery shopping yesterday, so sometime this week I will make liver and onions, a baked potato and broccoli.

I have my first pheasant hunt of the season in two weeks. It will be at a state park that is just minutes from my hunting friend's house which makes it really convenient. I still have birds from last season in my freezer. I want to try making corned "beef" out of a goose. I am also thinking about buying a gas smoker like Tim-in-law. I had a charcoal smoker years ago, but is a huge huge pain trying to keep the coals at just the right temperature. I think smoking is the best thing for game.

I put in a fire this morning while I was having breakfast, working on the butter and reading the paper. Nice. I put logs inside the fireplace around the edges so the fire will dry it out and make it easy to start for the next fire. Good trick. I think I am going to have a chimney sweep come out soon. I have never had it cleaned or inspected. I also might have him put a cap on it.

I took Mitch to get his annual checkup and shots. He became a favorite at the vet's when he was in every week or two for his scratched eye. When I took him in this time all the vet techs poured out from the back and made a fuss over him in the lobby. Seriously, there were 5 people that came out to say hi to Mitch. They always tell me to bring him in if we're in the neighborhood just so they can say hi. He's like a rock star there.

OK, enough procrastinating. I got my laundry done yesterday while the furnace was being installed. I got my grocery shopping done yesterday evening. That leaves picking up dog poop, raking leaves and cutting the grass this afternoon before the rain comes in again. TTFN.

$700 Crate & Barrel solid wood buffet for $139 at their outlet store!

I think this shot gives a better idea of how much wood is there.

A little over 2 face cords. More wood than I expected but I'm glad I have it now.

The natural state of the greyhound.

At this point in my gin and tonic career I think this is my favorite recipe for a delicious frosty limey drink:

4 ounces gin
8 ounces diet Schweppes tonic water
Juice from half a lime (about 1 tablespoon)

I take my lunch to work everyday. It saves me money and, more importantly, I eat better than if I went to a restaurant every day. My normal lunch is a sandwich, usually ham or turkey, one or two pieces of fruit, and maybe some nuts. A couple weeks ago I had a craving for a meatloaf sandwich, so I made a meatloaf over the weekend and packed that for lunch everyday. I liked it so much I'm on my third meatloaf made specifically for lunch sandwiches.

I remember ordering a gin and tonic back in my college days and thinking it was disgusting. I couldn't even finish it. Fast forward several years after that, I thought maybe my tastes matured and I tried it again. Blech. A few years ago I had the same thought and did the same thing. Blech again.

A few weeks ago the thought crossed my mind yet again, so I picked up a bottle of Tanqueray gin and a bottle or Martini & Rossi dry vermouth, looked up the standard martini recipe and I liked it! Next I went out and got a bottle of diet tonic water and a lime and made a gin and tonic. Loved it!

I picked up a bottle of Bombay Sapphire last week, and it is really smooth, but I think I like the pronounced pineyness of the Tanqueray better.

This weekend I bought a cocktail strainer and a set of 4 martini glasses. The strainer makes it way easier to make a martini.

Several weeks back I had people in the neighborhood I met that also had a greyhound watch Mitch overnight. When I picked him up the next day I noticed he was severely squinting his left eye. It only took a couple minutes to realize he probably was a bit too curious of the neighbor's two cats. I took him in to the emergency animal hospital (it was Sunday) and sure enough he had a couple scratches on his cornea. After too weeks of antibiotics and pain killer it was not healing up correctly. Mitch's regular vet did an operation where she scratched a grid pattern over the injury to let the healing process start over again fresh. It worked and he is back to normal again.

Took my car to the dealership a while back for an oil change and they asked if I wanted my cabin air filter changed for only $50. I declined. Last week I picked up a cabin air filter at the car parts store for $16 and it took less than 90 seconds to change it.

I am getting ready to start the process of getting quotes for a new furnace and air conditioner to take advantage of the $1,500 federal tax credit.

This is how my meatloaf cooked without a loaf pan turned out.

Trying something I saw on the Internet. I put my meatloaf in a loaf pan and then turned it out onto s cookie sheet to cook. It's in the oven right now.

One of my new martini glasses!

We are REALLY good at this.

Meatloaf!

I had this delicious smoked herring from Lake Superior for dinner tonight.

Big hop!

Mitch sacked out after a long day at the hospital.

I want an ibex now. Make sure you have your sound on.

Done!

I have to interrupt my momentum installing the back-up sump pump because I need to go to the store for another length of PVC pipe. I'm also going to pick up another check valve for the primary pump because I noticed the one on there now is leaking.

Mitch helping me install the back-up sump pump Saturday afternoon.

After accidentaly getting stoned on PVC cement I think this is as far as I go tonight.

What I'm starting with.

It was kind of a big deal to me to punch a hole through my perfectly good house, that's why you are being treated to the step-by-step details. For those of that don't know I bought a battery-powered back-up sump pump and hope to get most of it installed tonight. More pictures to follow as I progress.

Then I went back inside and cut through the inside half of the wood.

Then I went outside with a hole saw and cut through the aluminum siding, and then half way through the wood.

I started by drilling a hole with a regular bit from the inside all the way through the siding.

Mitch hanging his head over the back of the couch.

Mitch

This was part of my breakfast at Rudy's Hot Dog during my visit to Toledo last weekend. Also had eggs and coffee.

Because I'm me I wanted to figure out a way to visualize the sun's position throughout the day. The graphic is what I came up with. It shows from what direction the sun will be shining, and at what elevation, on the hour for my location on May 5, 2010.

The two really small triangles that just look like lines are the direction the sun will rise and set. They look like lines because the angle is only 0.1 degree. I think it's interesting that the sun rises north of east and sets north of west.

The point of view of the graphic is looking to the southwest.

I created the graphic in SketchUp and got the sun positional data from the U.S. Naval Observatory.

This is what the "range" looked like at the archery class yesterday. It is the highest point in the county and I could see the entire Chicago skyline perfectly.

I was like a kid in a candy shop yesterday and stocked up on some good beer. The letter grades are from beeradvocate.com.

Lagunitas' Maximus Imperial IPA B+

Green Flash Brewing's West Coast IPA A-

Great Divide's Yeti Imperial Stout A

Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout A-

The funny thing is after I got home I only drank my homebrew. I hope to try a couple of them this evening.

Miscellany

I have always wanted to try shooting a bow. A few weeks ago I happened to look in a program guide from the county forest district and saw they had a free introductory class, so I signed up. It is this afternoon and is an hour and a half long. If I like it I might think about looking for a target bow on craigslist.

A few weeks ago I got Google's Android phone the Nexus One and love it. An interesting thing is watching the reaction of iPhone users that try it out. Every one of them was really amazed at the thinness of it, the nice solid feel it has, and how fast and responsive it was when checking out the different apps. I think I will make a post sometime describing the apps I use the most.

At work over the years I've had to occasionally use SQL Server to edit or add a value in a table for an application, export a table to get some statistics on application use, change the value in an existing SQL string, light stuff like that. This week I've had to actually design queries, write stored procedures, and design reports to use in some internal web apps and it's been a lot of fun. Fortunately for me my brewing friend at work is also a SQL developer and has been invaluable in pointing me in the right directions.

So far this year my lawn is looking amazing. I still need to put some work in on my flower beds though. Mostly weeding and recutting the borders. I've decided not to plant tomatoes this year. It's usually more cost and effort than the few tomatoes I get each year are worth. I am going to look for something else to plant that might be a little less temperamental. I have to see if the space I have would work for eggplant. I love eggplant.

The routine used to be once I settled into the family room for the evening to relax and watch TV Mitch would go upstairs to the bedroom and after 10 minutes realize he was lonely and I could hear him whimper at the top of the steps. After 10 minutes of that half the time he would realize the solution would be to come back downstairs, the other half he would fall asleep. To fix that I got a couple baby gates at a church yard sale. I have three paths to get upstairs from my family room. One is sealed off just by closing a set of pocket doors I have from my family room to the living room. I have a baby gate that stays in place by pressing against the door frame from the laundry room hallway to the dining room. The other baby gate is free standing so it is easy just to move around and I keep it in the main hallway leading to the front door.

I bought the 4x4, 2x4's, cement mix and carriage bolts a few weeks ago to make a support for my hop plants but I still have not put it together. I think today is the day I do that. I got the grass cutting out of the way Thursday evening.

When I was visiting the fam a few months ago I tried the FURminator on Mitch that Tim and Lisa got for Cody. It worked so great on Mitch that I ordered one that night from Amazon while I was still visiting. It also works amazingly on Amy's Rottweiler, but a friend at work borrowed it to try on his German Shorthaired Pointer and it did nothing for her coat. They have a list of dogs that it will and will not work for on their website. German Shorthairs were on the will work list but with an asterisk saying the hair within that breed varies from dog to dog and it may or may not work. The list is in the FAQ section of their website. I would link to it but it is a Flash app. Most retail places sell it for about $60, but Amazon has it for $30. Worth every cent.

Probably the biggest thing I missed most about not having a house cleaner come in every other week was scrubbing the kitchen floor. Also thanks to Tim and Lisa I discovered the Hoover FloorMate. There are three modes of operation. First is dry vacuum mode. You do this first to pick up all the dry crumbs, dog hair, etc. You empty out the catch bin and then switch to the wet scrub mode. The brushes lower to contact the floor, and water with cleaning solution is dispensed. Once the floor is scrubbed you switch to squeegee vacuum mode. The brushes stop and lift off the floor and a squeegee lowers to contact the floor and it vacuums up any remaining water. It works really well. For light touch ups I sometimes just use hot water only without cleaning solution. I found the best price ordering from Walmart.com.

Last year I got a new roof. I think this year I am going to get a new furnace and air conditioner. I think there is still a 30% tax credit available from the feds which will be nice. I also want to get an estimate to paint my aluminum siding white, but I don't know if I will do that this year or not. I think it will be about 1/3 of the cost of installing new siding.

I am really excited about the HBO miniseries "The Pacific" that starts tomorrow night (Sunday 3/13/10) at 8:00 PM central. I called my cable company last week and had them turn on HBO just so I could watch the miniseries. It is only $15 per month. I don't know if I will keep it after the miniseries is over. I'll see how much I watch it.

"The Pacific" is like "Band of Brothers", but instead of the war in Europe it tells the story of the war in the Pacific theater. It was produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks with Dreamworks.

Being who I am I have already created a Google Earth map with all of the locations that will be in the 10 part series so I will have a better geographical context while I am watching. If you are going to watch it and want the Google Earth .kmz file let me know and I will e-mail it to you.

The Pacific trailer #1

The Pacific trailer #2

I went pheasant hunting for the first time this weekend. I shot 3 of the 9 birds we took. I cooked up two pheasant and 1 chucker for dinner tonight. I just pan fried them with a flour/egg/bread crumb coating. Very good. Like chicken only better.

The picture above is near the end of the hunt and we were trying to look for tracks. The dog did an amazing job of sniffing them out.

Here is the Toyota page where you can enter your VIN number to see if your car is included in ANY recall or service campaign.

I had a tough time reading the one on the windshield in my poorly lit garage. It is also on an easy to read sticker with bar codes in the driver's door frame.

My Toyota is in the clear!

I already had that edgy look at four years old.

Note to self: If I needed to replace my GPS today I would probably get the Garmin Nuvi 1450.

Amazon has it for about $310.

Update 2/24/10: I think I've changed my mind and I still would get the Garmin Nuvi 755T I mentioned last month.

I've been practicing using GIMP to correct the green eye effect dogs get when you take their picture with a flash.

Before


After


You can't just use the red eye removal tool that a lot of image manipulation programs have, like Irfanview, because the reflection from a dog's eye isn't red, and the program is looking for red color in a person's eye.

One of the big reasons I stayed home for Christmas finally happened this morning. The sump pump hose outside froze shut and when I woke up this morning the pump was running continuously. It has happened a few times before when we have really wet weather followed by a few days of really cold weather. It takes a few days for the excess ground water to dissipate.

So before I even had my coffee I was outside in 2 degree cold trying to remove the frozen hose so I could bring it to the kitchen sink to thaw it out with hot water. Of course little bits of dirty ice got on the kitchen floor and counter. I think it took me a little more than an hour before I finally got the thawed out hose reattached.

The dirty ice bits on the floor were not as big a deal as they could have been since I bought my Hoover Floormate. I just used it in wet vacuum mode and it sucked up everything. I use it quite a bit. I mostly use it in dry vacuum mode to pick up dog hair and crumbs on the floor. I've used it a few times with just hot water in the tank for spot cleaning little messes, and I've used it once with the cleaning solution to do the entire floor. I pull it out at least a couple times a week. The wet vacuum mode is great when Mitch tracks snow in from the backyard. Even when the floor looks clean I'm always surprised by the grey color of the water in the waste tank.

I watched X-Men Origins: Wolverine last night and recommend it if you want a fun mindless popcorn movie.

We tried Five Guys burgers a month or so ago. The hamburgers are some of the best out there and the portions are HUGE. I rarely order French fries, but we split an order just to give them a taste. Even splitting them we couldn't finish them without jacking my blood sugar sky high. Amy had a great idea: I froze the rest in a zip lock bag to use later for hash browns. This morning I did just that and it worked out great! I put some Smart Balance in a hot pan and then the fries and cooked those for 10 minutes or so, and then moved them to one side and cooked my eggs. The fries reheated better than I thought. The outside crisped up really nice and the inside was nice and hot.

Even though it is only 4 degrees outside Mitch is panting from getting overheated laying in his sunbeam. The cloudless day has the temperature in my southern-facing family room up a little over 4 degrees.

I thought Mitch napping with his head on Bella's butt was great.

Mitch playing with the squeaky sock monkey Shawn and Kate sent him for Christmas. He LOVES squeaky toys! I love it when he tosses his head back with the toy in his mouth.

For Christmas I planned on driving to Ohio on Christmas Eve morning but at the last minute aborted because of the big ice storm over Illinois and Indiana. It was a huge bummer, and I also missed out on the 5+ gallons of fresh IPA Tim had on tap from Original Gravity Brewing.

Amy was flying to her Mom's on Christmas day and was going to kennel Bella, and since I was going to be here the whole week I saved her some money and am dog sitting. For the most part she is a good guest. When the neighbors' dogs are out I have to put her on the leash in the backyard because she will just run back and forth along the fence and bark.

I didn't have any food in the house because I wasn't planning on being here, so the first thing I did is went to the store to get some fun Christmas Eve food as well as some staples. I also swung by a Redbox and picked up three movies. Amy came over in the late afternoon and helped me make hummus and baba ganoush and then we watched District 9.

Christmas Day I purposely did nothing except lay on my couch and watch movies all day and eat hummus and baba ganoush. It wasn't the same as being with family, but it was kind of a nice change of pace.

I ended up watching seven movies over the Christmas weekend:

District 9
Inglourious Basterds
Angles and Demons
Wrong Turn at Tahoe
Maiden Heist
Tyson
The Hangover

It was a short and quite week at work. Friday is New Years day and I took off New Years Eve day, so I only had three days of work.

Last night I got the movie Up, made another batch of hummus, had a wedge of Roquefort, and a bottle of really good sparkling wine (Gloria Ferrer Sonoma Brut).

For New Years Day (today) I got a pork loin and sauerkraut that I will start in the crock pot soon, and will of course be watching the Buckeyes play in the Rose Bowl. As of right now we are four point underdogs against Oregon.

I'm not sure what else I have planned for today. I still have the other half of my French press of coffee to drink, and I haven't brought the newspaper in yet. I may or may not do some laundry. It is very very cold here today. Two degrees right now. I might swing by a Redbox again and get another movie.

Happy New Year!