I Know Jack!

New Podcatcher

2011-11-17T20:48:00.003-07:00

Last time I went to work, I left my mp3 player in my desk. It is too far to justify going back just to get my mp3 player when I have a new perfectly good smartphone that can download and play podcasts on its own. I finally had the impetus I needed to look into android podcatchers. I settled on BeyondPod. It’s not free, but I just didn’t think I was going to end up being satisfied with any of

Emergency Chocolate

2011-11-17T20:24:00.001-07:00

1/4 cup chips (I prefer mixed butterscotch and dark chocolate chips) 1 Tablespoon smooth peanut butter 1/2 cup oatmeal (I prefer rolled oats) Microwave chips and peanut butter on high for a minute. Mix. Add oatmeal. Stir. Enjoy. With milk. Notes: Makes 1/2 cup- just the right size for a XS Round Bowl from Glad.This recipe actually makes just a little more than I want in one

Cuppa Cuppa Cuppa...& Veggie Salad

2011-10-22T17:57:00.002-07:00

You can google cuppa cuppa cuppa cake to find out about it's genesis, but it sounded interesting enough to me to give it a go. Super simple. A cuppa flour plus a cuppa fruit cocktail with it's juice plus a cup of sugar; mix and bake. The blogger I got this idea from said it was awfully sweet so I used the whole can of fruit and went heavy on the flour and light on the sugar. I also used

Carmela’s Laugh

2011-10-14T09:14:00.001-07:00

Tamara and Carmela have so much fun. We love watching our baby grow.

Frosting the Yellow Cake Muffins

2011-07-24T18:49:00.001-07:00

Today, Tamara made yellow cake muffins. We didn’t have any frosting around, so I made some. Below is the correct way of making frosting like mine. You can know that it’s the correct way because it’s the way that I did it. Quod erat demonstrandum. First, you put the amount of butter equal to about how much frosting you want in a bowl. Use the butter that has been sitting on the counter for a few

What the Devilled Eggs?

2011-04-25T11:10:00.001-07:00

Making devilled eggs was much faster with leftover Easter eggs than it was starting with raw eggs. I made devilled eggs a couple weeks ago for a munch-n-mingle after church. I devilled a dozen eggs and only got to eat half of one. I’ve been wanting to make some more ever since. I tried something new today. It didn’t turn out as well as the eggs I devilled for church, but it’s pretty good. The

Homemade Pop Tart Adventure FTW!!

2011-04-21T20:21:00.001-07:00

I was reading Lifehacker.com the other day and there was a post about how much better homemade pop tarts are than the store bought variety. Of course I wanted to make some right away but I don’t have time for that just any day during the semester. I’ve been intending to make them any day ever since. The article I read, which ultimately had come from the New York Times or something, had

A Sad Limerick

2011-03-03T18:59:00.001-07:00

I love limericks because they are the most natural form of poetry to me. When I think of poetry, the cadence of a limerick is what comes to mind. I also like how limericks are almost always funny, even without any effort at humor. In fact, it’s hard to write a sad limerick. I feel like I succeeded in writing a sad limerick today, but if you still think it’s funny, then that just proves how

Remembering Nashville

2010-11-22T08:19:00.000-07:00

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Cats Like General Conference Too

2010-10-11T14:30:00.001-07:00

While folding laundry (one of Paprika’s favorite activities) I decided to watch General Conference. Paprika watched General Conference with me. She especially liked our prophet. Watching and listening to him just wasn’t enough for her. She had to reach out and touch him too. She stroked the screen a couple times, but it apparently didn’t add to the experience and she soon gave up.

We Really Got Hail

2010-10-10T19:10:00.001-07:00

I was out driving around when the hail started Tuesday. It didn’t start with small bits or heavy rain; it went strait from light sprinkle to huge heavy hail that made me fear for my windows. I quickly felt like I was being pelted by a machine gun of hail. I pulled over next to a particularly tall bougainvillea bush that I thought might at least give my car some modicum of help. This was not

Looking at Some Fruit in a Bowl

2010-10-04T23:23:00.001-07:00

There is something very homey and comforting about fruit in a bowl. I feel almost like I’m creating a work of art every time I dump a bag of fruit into whatever bowl I use. I think this is because so many paintings are made of fruit on a table &c. To be honest, the real reason I took this picture was because I have a new monopod. For many years I’ve wanted a good monopod and I finally found

Ideas for Sale: Free to a Good Home

2010-10-01T20:47:00.001-07:00

Tamara and I went to the Home and Landscape Show for our date tonight. We were mostly there to see landscape ideas and dream, but there was one indoor idea that I really liked. One display had a tv surrounded by a picture frame. I thought that just made the tv so much less intrusive. We expect to see picture frames on the walls – even big ones. Tamara and I thought that when the tv were off,

Grampa’s Dog Damien

2010-09-28T21:15:00.001-07:00

When Damien was a puppy, he learned the joys of sitting in someone’s lap. This is something he never grew out of, even as he grew larger than 100 lbs. Unfortunately for him, most people didn’t want him to sit on their lap. I was the only one small enough that he could knock me over and sit in my lap. See how happy he is? I visited Grampa Slim this past weekend and he gave me this picture. We

Rice, Rice, & Coconut Cream

2010-09-13T22:14:00.001-07:00

Who ever knew that coconut milk separates into milk and cream just like cow’s milk does? Today I made rice balls with General Tso beef inside them. The black rice speckled balls are no different from the white balls; they just have added black rice for fanciness. These turned out really well. All you do is make Onigiri like I’ve posted the recipe for before and form the ball in a mug so you can

Rock Climbing with an Owl

2010-09-08T15:47:00.001-07:00

Pictured on the right are my friends John and Jardan. John is clinging to the cliff for dear life while Jardan belays for him. I did the lead climbing, which means I got to go up the face of the mountain and attach the rope to eyelets every few feet until I got to the top and attached the rope there. I didn’t fall while I was lead climbing but I did fall on my second time going up. I try

Podcast Delight

2010-08-20T13:19:00.001-07:00

Me: podcast junkie. Well, that might be a little strong, but I really did develop a penchant for podcasts back when I had a physical job that only required two of my nine neurons to perform. The other seven rebelled at the thought of atrophy resultant from repetition of a two-hour track of canned music played night after night. Hence the cerebral seven proceeded to produce my proclivity for

Jack of All Inboxes

2010-07-15T18:45:00.001-07:00

Benefits: Eliminate spam completely Partially typo-proof your email address Create yourself new email addresses on the fly – no messing with settings or accounts involved Experience increased email security – never share your sign in name Avoid annoying anonymous email services Use your favorite mail client like you’ve always done I doubt I'm the first one to think of this,

Computer! Why hast thou thus dealt with me?

2010-07-14T17:54:00.001-07:00

I feed thee thy favorite 60Hz 120V. I speak kindly to thee and tap lovingly thy keys. Thy bloatware I do remove and I keep thee inoculated with thy favorite Avast! antivirus. Even do I go above and beyond the care that most owners give by eliminating thy unnecessary startup processes and services in msconfig. Thy files I do back up and even I reloaded thee with a fresh operating system install

Sub-Par Results

2010-07-14T03:52:00.001-07:00

There are times when I’m smarter than myself, e.g., I know I’m likely to forget my security badge on Monday, so I put it in my blue uniform Friday evening. That way when I get to work on Monday and suddenly realize that I forgot to bring my badge with me, it’s already taken care of because I was prepared in advance. Today I was not smarter than myself. This morning, while I was thinking clearly

Why is it so hard to go back to the gym after only a week off?

2010-07-08T16:54:00.001-07:00

I almost didn’t go to the gym today. This morning I planned on going to the gym right after work.When the time came, I thought I’d rather go work on my webfu, and besides, I was hungry. My principle reason for sticking to the plan was to develop self discipline. So I went to the gym, but in the parking lot I discovered that I didn’t bring a pair of jeans to change into afterward. There’s my

CSS Success and How I Conquered my Blog as a Monkey

2010-07-06T18:22:00.003-07:00

I’ve been annoyed that HTML code showed up in my title. The template I used placed the title on the left of the page and I wanted it centered. I knew the HTML code for centering text but nothing about CSS at the time. Thus showed up in my title on email notifications etc. for months. Today I learned a little bit about CSS and when I saw this problem show up, it occurred to me that the

Tethered Success!

2010-07-06T17:49:00.001-07:00

After hours of diligently banging my head on the keyboard, I have tethered my Samsung Moment to my Windows XP laptop! Countless forums and web pages were filled with posts from other Moment users who said that all they had to do was follow the instructions and everything worked. I followed the instructions from PdaNet and from EasyTether, but to no avail. My computer refused to install drivers

Tall Desk

2010-05-18T19:59:00.001-07:00

Our friend, who stayed with us until he graduated, was an artist. He brought a tall graffiti desk with him and left it behind. I’m so happy to have a tall desk, but solid color is more my style. See the spray paint at the bottom of the picture? Tamara was so nice and painted the desk for me. She also took the picture.

Good idea at the time.

2010-05-18T19:33:00.001-07:00

Why do we do Ants on a Log with green celery and big raisins when we could do it with little currents on red chard? Wouldn’t that look so much better? The chard was just too fibrous and kind of tough. It’s a great substitute for celery when its cut into small pieces for a salad. Not as good for this.